David cameron

Thursday

James Forsyth

Cameron insists the UK must attack IS in Syria, but only with a ‘clear majority’ in the House

David Cameron came to the Commons today to make the case for the UK extending its bombing campaign against Islamic State to Syria. His tone was as emollient as possible, as he responded to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee report which argued that the UK should not do this. He said that the UK could provide unique capabilities and that there are 70,000 non-extremist, Syrian fighters who could act as a ground force to support the bombing campaign. He stressed that as long as the Islamic State ‘Caliphate’ exists, it would act as a rallying cry for Islamist extremists around the world and that it had ‘repeatedly’ tried to attack

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron sets out his case for bombing Islamic State in Syria

In the past few minutes, David Cameron has published his response to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on the case for British action against Islamic State in Syria. You can read the response here. The Prime Minister argues that the threat to Britain is so great that ‘now is the time to scale up British diplomatic, defence and humanitarian efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict and to defeat ISIL’. ‘The threat Isil poses to Britain and to our citizens today is serious and undeniable’, he says, warning that Britain must act before the terrorists succeed in an attack again this country. Cameron’s challenge from MPs was to set out what

Anonymous

Military action against Isis needs a coherent strategy. . . . here it is

Like most British soldiers of my generation, I fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Few would now justify the reasons for invading Iraq; most of us who fought there at first recognised the amateurish nature of the strategy and its lack of realistic political objectives. But in 2007, under General Petraeus, the coalition adopted a new strategy that was underpinned by coherent policy. This stemmed from the recognition that unless common cause was found with moderate Sunnis, a workable Iraqi polity could never be established. The rapid improvements that flowed from this change were impressive but disgracefully shortlived. The US departure from Iraq in 2010 allowed the Shi’ite Nuri Al Maliki

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Corbyn’s defence

What strange people we Brits are. We spend years moaning that our politicians are cynical opportunists who don’t stand for anything. Then along comes an opposition leader who has principles — and appears to stick by them even when it makes him unpopular — and he is dismissed as a joke. Jeremy Corbyn has been ridiculed in recent days for the feebleness of his foreign policy. It is widely agreed that his positions on terrorism and Isis show how unelectable and useless he is. At the same time, we say he is a grave threat to national security. But what has Corbyn said that is so stupid or dangerous? In

Tuesday

Camilla Swift

The SNP don’t care about foxes. It was all a pack of lies

So, it turns out that the SNP weren’t that bothered about the plight of foxes after all. Back in July, you might remember, David Cameron was forced to backtrack on his plan for a parliamentary vote on relaxing the hunting ban, after the SNP decided to vote against any changes. This, of course, came after Nicola Sturgeon wrote in February: ‘the SNP have a long-standing position of not voting on matters that purely affect England — such as fox hunting south of the border, for example — and we stand by that.’ But now we hear that just a month after blocking Cameron’s proposed changes, the SNP received a £10,000

Monday

James Forsyth

Defence review: Cameron takes Corbyn to task over national security

David Cameron’s initial statement to the Commons on the Strategic Defence and Security Review was a rather high-minded affair. Cameron talked about how the world was an even more dangerous place now than it was in 2010 and conceded that governments can’t predict the future, and that you had to ‘expect the unexpected’ when it came to national security. But his reply to Corbyn’s rather rambling response – which went on so long that John Bercow felt obliged to tell the Labour leader to hurry up – was brutal. Cameron rattled off Corbyn and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s greatest hits on national security as the Labour benches looked even

The Spectator

Full text: David Cameron’s statement on the Strategic Defence and Security Review

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. Mr Speaker, our national security depends on our economic security, and vice versa. So the first step in keeping our country safe is to ensure our economy is, and remains, strong. Over the last five years we have taken the difficult decisions needed to bring down our deficit and restore our economy to strength. In 2010, we were ordering equipment for which there was literally no money. The total black hole in the defence budget alone was bigger than the entire defence budget in that year. Now it is back in balance.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Corbyn facing a ‘point of reckoning’ over Syria vote

Pro-intervention Labour MPs are increasingly confident that they will help David Cameron get a majority for British military action against Islamic State in Syria. They also believe that the amount of support for such action will bring what one frontbencher describes as a ‘point of reckoning’ and another describes as a ‘turning point for the party’. This is because Corbyn is going to have to concede that he must give the Labour Shadow Cabinet a free vote on the matter, otherwise there will be a ‘bloodbath’, sources warn. A number of Shadow Cabinet members are minded to vote in favour of action if Cameron presents a sufficiently well-thought-out plan. And

Saturday

James Forsyth

Cameron to make his case for war to the Commons next week

David Cameron will set out his case for air strikes against IS in Syria to the Commons late next week. Cameron is, as I say in my Sun column today, immensely frustrated by the current British position of only bombing Islamic State in Iraq and not Syria. But he knows that it would be politically back breaking for him to lose another Commons vote on a matter of war and peace, so is proceeding cautiously.   But last night’s UN resolution has strengthened Cameron’s hand. Even before that, 30 Labour MPs were certain to back Cameron on this issue and another 30 were highly likely to. With a UN resolution

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Is it really ‘grossly irresponsible’ to be critical of Islam?

Hours before the Paris atrocities, Al Arabiya news reported a speech by David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. In it, he said that because some mainstream media were ‘grossly irresponsible’ in their coverage of Muslim issues, Ipso, the press standards body, ought to consider making it possible for an entire religious group to bring a complaint about coverage. Mr Anderson is an able and distinguished lawyer. Surely he knows that the entire history of this subject is that mainstream Muslim bodies are constantly trying to criminalise hostile remarks about their religion. And surely he knows that if this were conceded, the chilling of free speech would be

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Cameron: UN resolution shows world uniting against Islamic State

The UN Security Council this evening unanimously approved a resolution calling on all countries that can do so to fight Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. David Cameron welcomed it as a sign that ‘the world has united against Isil’. It will likely form a key part of his case for British involvement in military action against Islamic State in Syria, and in his statement, the Prime Minister said: ‘Today’s vote shows beyond doubt the breadth of international support for doing more in Syria and for decisive action to eradicate ISIL. Britain will continue to support our allies who are fighting ISIL in Syria. I will continue to make the

Thursday

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 19 November 2015

When Jeremy Corbyn says it is better to bring people to trial than to shoot them, he is right. So one might feel a little sorry for him as the critics attack his reaction to the Paris events. But in fact the critics are correct, for the wrong reason. It is not Mr Corbyn’s concern for restraint and due process which are the problem. It is the question of where his sympathies really lie, of what story he thinks all these things tell. Every single time that a terrorist act is committed (unless, of course, it be a right-wing one, like that of Anders Breivik), Mr Corbyn locates the ill

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 19 November 2015

Home After the killings in Paris, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that seven terrorist attacks on Britain had been prevented in the past six months. He met President Vladimir Putin of Russia at a G20 meeting at Antalya in Turkey. Mr Putin said: ‘We should join efforts in preventing terror. Unfortunately our bilateral relations are not of the best.’ Mr Cameron said in the Commons: ‘Raqqa, if you like, is the head of the snake… we need to deal with it not just in Iraq but in Syria too.’ He said funds from maintaining defence spending at 2 per cent of GDP would go to special forces, drones and

The Spectator

A better way

To say that the Paris attacks could have happened in Britain is not enough. Such attacks are being attempted here with terrifying regularity —seven have been thwarted so far this year alone. MI5’s official assessment is that a terrorist attack on British soil is ‘highly likely’. Our security services have so far been very good at keeping us safe. But as the IRA famously put it, spies have to be lucky all of the time, terrorists have to be lucky only once. So it is impossible for Britain to view events on the continent with any sense of complacency. Still, the Prime Minister was justified in pointing out last week that

Toby Young Toby Young

Western liberalism is no match for the Islamic Game of Thrones

As a graduate student in the Harvard Government Department in the late 1980s, I became slightly jaded about the number of visiting professors who warned about the imminent demise of the West. The thrust of their arguments was nearly always the same. The secular liberal values we cherish, such as freedom of speech and the separation of church and state, won’t survive in the face of growing, religious disenchantment with modernity unless they’re rooted in something more meaningful than rational individualism. They were talking about Islamic Fundamentalism, obviously, although sometimes they threw in Christian Fundamentalism as well in order not to seem ‘Orientalist’ or ‘ethnocentric’. These political scientists were, without exception,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama’s failure is Putin’s opportunity

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/parisattacksaftermath/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Ben Judah discuss whether the West should work with Putin” startat=824] Listen [/audioplayer]The principal strategic objective in the war on terror has been a failure. Ever since 9/11, the aim has been to deny terrorists sanctuary. That, after all, is why the United States and Britain went into Afghanistan — troops were sent in only after the Taliban refused to hand over the al-Qaeda leadership and shut down the terrorist training camps. But now, a large terrorist enclave exists in the very heart of the Middle East. President Obama’s reaction to this massive strategic failure has been lack-lustre. His main concern is to stress that,

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

David Cameron is starting to look like Jeremy Corbyn’s best friend at PMQs

Jezza started PMQs with a bit of a wobble. As he got to his feet the applause from his Labour ‘friends’ sounded like the hoarse whooshings of a punctured beach ball. Corbyn nervously offered his sympathy to the Paris terror victims and expressed concern that the slaughter of 129 innocents might increase Islamophobia in Britain. The attacks, he said, ‘have nothing in common with the 2 million Muslims who live here.’ David Cameron agreed, partially. He drew a distinction between ‘the religion of peace’ (which is Islam, in case you were getting confused) and the ‘bile spouted’ by terrorist killers. But, he said, ‘it’s not good enough to say there’s no

Douglas Murray

Politicians are finally starting to admit a link between Islam and the extremists

One step forward, one step back. Theresa May says in Parliament that the Paris attacks have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. And on the same day, later in the evening, her boss quite rightly says: ‘It is not good enough to say simply that Islam is a religion of peace and then to deny any connection between the religion of Islam and the extremists. Why? Because these extremists are self-identifying as Muslims.’ In saying this the Prime Minister was echoing the sensible and intelligent comments of one of his ministers – Sajid Javid – who rightly said in January after the last massacre in Paris: ‘The lazy answer would be to

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Labour MPs attack Stop The War and Corbyn’s views on terrorism

Labour MPs appear to be just as annoyed by Jeremy Corbyn’s links to the Stop The War coalition as they are about his comments on shoot to kill. In the questions following David Cameron’s Commons statement on the Paris attacks, several MPs used the opportunity to make coded attacks on Stop The War for a blog it published, titled ‘Paris reaps whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East’. It has been since been removed (cached version here) and Corbyn said he was glad it was deleted — but he has yet to condemn the fact it was published in the first place. Ian Austin, the MP for