The moral arguments for confronting Islamic State are increasing by the day

It’s not perhaps the first thing you notice in the Labour manifesto, but one interesting commitment by the party is to establish a Global Envoy for Religious Freedom. It may or may not be an indication that Douglas Alexander reads The Spectator – which suggested some time ago that Britain should, like Canada, have a roving envoy to support specifically freedom of religion – but it’s a good move. Given the remarkable insouciance of the Coalition government on the issue of the persecution of religious minorities and Christians in particular – there was no obvious British reaction, for instance, to the consistent string of attacks on innocent Christians in Pakistan in the last five years, certainly not in terms of a diminution of aid – this is an implicit rebuke to the Tories.