Iraq

Tories are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labour leadership contest. Two stories that have broken this morning show precisely why. Returning to the Iraq war — always a comfortable topic for Labour — Corbyn has told the Guardian he would apologise to the British people for the ‘deception’ of the war: ‘Let us say we will never again unnecessarily put our troops under fire and our country’s standing in the world at risk. Let us make it clear that Labour will never make the same mistake again, will never flout the United Nations and international law ‘ ‘The endless delay on the Chilcot inquiry is wrong. But

Is the government set to bring bombing Islamic State terrorists in Syria before the Commons soon? The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has announced that the RAF’s Tornado aircraft will be kept in service until 2017 for air strikes against the Islamic State, to ‘ensure we maintain this crucial operational tempo’. On the Today programme, Fallon explained that the aircraft have ‘proven their worth’ and have helped Iraqi forces in the fight against ISIL: ‘The Iraqi forces are slowly but surely beginning to push ISIL back. They have recaptured Tikrit, there is a campaign going on at the moment to liberate Ramadi. They are recruiting to both the army and to the

I know that the comments beneath online newspaper pieces aren’t exactly where you go if you want sane, balanced opinion, but the forum which followed the Guardian’s news story about Tony Blair’s speech yesterday nevertheless took me aback. Appropriately enough, there were 666 comments when I read them. And how many had anything positive to say about the former Prime Minister?  I counted one, possibly two, if you count calling him a ‘charismatic commentator’ before saying you think he is out of touch. It has been clear since around 2002 that Blair has been seen on the left as a generally negatively influence, but is there really no-one among Labour’s grassroots

I suppose I should cease carping. We got a Blue Labour budget (except for the ludicrous stuff on inheritance tax), and far better than anything we would have got under my party, Labour. And at least the Prime Minister is addressing the issue of Islamic ‘extremism’. Yes, I suppose, I would concur that taking away the passports from juvenile wannabe jihadis is a good idea. Just about. A horrible part of me thinks they should be taken away once they have left the country, though. Certainly that should apply to the adults. Encourage them to go, then nullify their passports. However, to disavow our own role in facilitating the Islamic

If you want to see our grievance-ridden, huckster-driven future, looks to Northern Ireland, which has always been a world leader in the fevered politics of religious victimhood and aggression. Just as the Tories and much of the politically-correct liberal centre think they can force us to be nice by allowing the cops to arrest those who ‘spread hate but do not break laws’ (in George Osborne’s sinister words) so Northern Ireland has all kinds of restrictions of ‘hate speech’ to police its rich and diverse tradition of religious bigotry. I suppose it was inevitable that they would catch 78-year-old Pastor James McConnell of the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in North Belfast.

We learn today that George Osborne will say in his Budget that he’s using the fines he’s collected from bankers to build a memorial to terror victims. I find this juxtaposition rather odd: why link terrorism to banking? Why not just be honest: that any memorial will be funded from the the same tax pool as everything else? But moreover, I do wonder where this memorial will go.  We’re told that the Chancellor will consult with the relatives of the victims before agreeing a location. These memorials do serve a purpose: they become part of the world our ministers operate in; part of their daily lives. Most politicians will know

It’s been obvious for a while that the Prime Minister is exasperated by the way American and other allied officials – including President Obama himself – keep expressing concern about Britain’s rapidly shrinking defence capabilities and the prospect of yet more defence cuts. David Cameron also dislikes being reminded that he lectured other Nato leaders about meeting the alliance’s minimum of spending 2 per cent GDP on defence, when by any honest calculation the UK is not going to meet that target. He hasn’t responded directly to the multiple warnings from Washington. This is presumably because overtly contradicting the President, the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defence of the United States could