Letters to the Editor | 11 August 2007

In his interesting and positive account of Gordon Brown’s visit to America, Matthew d’Ancona reveals that Brown’s thinking on the causes of terrorism has ‘shifted’ since the recent so-called Islamist ‘doctors’ plot’ to set off car bombs in the West End and at Glasgow airport.

Why’s Brown so slow?

Sir: In his interesting and positive account of Gordon Brown’s visit to America, Matthew d’Ancona reveals that Brown’s thinking on the causes of terrorism has ‘shifted’ since the recent so-called Islamist ‘doctors’ plot’ to set off car bombs in the West End and at Glasgow airport.
‘In the past, he has tended to believe that the root cause of global terrorism was economic deprivation: or, to put it another way, that trade and aid would be the core of strategic triumph over our Islamist adversaries. The inferno at Glasgow airport sealed in his mind a shift of analysis: that twisted ideas, rather than poverty, were the true basis of the problem.’
Mr