Liam Fox warns on security spending and on avoiding Iraq

The Cabinet is split between doves and hawks on whether Britain should back US involvement in Iraq, but this morning Liam Fox argued on the Andrew Marr Show that whether or not the Uk avoids military action, it will not be able to avoid the threat from jihadists. he said:

‘Remember, the West is seen as a single entity. There are those who say if we don’t get involved, if we hunker down, then we’ll be fine, there’ll be no backlash. That is utterly, utterly wrong because the jihadists don’t hate us because of what we do; they hate us because of who we are and we can’t change that. It’s our values and our history that they detest more than anything else.’

There is also the point that an unnamed hawkish minister makes to Tim Shipman in the Sunday Times today: just because this country isn’t directly involved, its airbases and engineers could still be used by the Americans.