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[/audioplayer]The Autumn Statement on 25 November had long been circled in Downing Street diaries as the season’s defining political moment. Its importance only grew after the Lords rejected the government’s tax-credit changes and George Osborne announced that he would present his revised proposals in this statement. But now it is not even seen as the defining political moment of this week, pushed down the news agenda by the terrorist threat in Europe and David Cameron’s decision to make the case to the Commons for Britain extending its anti-Islamic State bombing into Syria.
The extent of the security threat to Europe is becoming all too apparent. Not only have we seen more than 100 people gunned down in the French capital, we have seen another European capital essentially shut down by terrorists for several days. For obvious reasons, the question of how to deal with this threat is now what dominates politics.
The Tories have tried to make ‘security’ their watchword since before the general election. But the focus has now shifted from economic security to national security. This shift was under way even before Paris.
Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, with his hard-leftist views on foreign policy and dovish position on terrorism, created a particular political opportunity. While his left-wing populism on the economy has some appeal, the electoral market for abolishing the army and calling Osama bin Laden’s death a tragedy is almost non-existent. Last month, one of the most political people in Downing Street summed up the Tory approach to Corbyn and Labour thus: ‘National security, that’s how we’ll disqualify them. We don’t even need to get to the economics.’
Corbyn’s problems with his own MPs have got so much worse because events have propelled national security to the top of the political agenda.
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