Seriousness comes naturally to Gordon Brown and yesterday he gave a speech detailing how Britain is defending itself by striking at the heart of the ‘crucible of terror’. What Brown has in seriousness of delivery, he lacks in realism. Britain has not fought for such a sustained period since the high-water mark of empire; but the ambitions of two prime ministers, and to be fair the severity of the threat that Britain faces, have outstripped resources; Britain is now completely over-extended.
Hours after Brown’s speech, Baroness Kinnock divulged that anti-terror measures run by the Foreign Office have been cut – anti-narcotics campaigns in Afghanistan and de-radicalisation programmes in Pakistan. These are frontline operations in the ‘crucible of terror’, starving the Taliban and al-Qaeda of manpower and resources.
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