The West won’t even defend its own values. How can it be expected to defeat Isis?

Here’s a sobering fact for you: yesterday in Brussels, Isis sympathisers killed five times as many civilians in one hour as British airstrikes have killed or injured Isis fighters in Syria since December. At the last count, in late February, British airstrikes over Syria had killed or hurt just seven Isis fighters in three months. Seven. Not even 10; seven. In Brussels, a small gang of Isis fanboys killed 35 civilians.

British airstrikes in Syria were launched to great fanfare in the aftermath of the terror attacks in Paris in November. Hillary Benn was widely hailed for his Commons speech in which he said, ‘What we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated.’ Much of the media went into Churchillian mode. There was a feeling that, like our grandfathers 70-odd years ago, we were off to fight fascism. The reality has been rather different. It took four weeks for British airstrikes to kill