Terrorism

Do you know the name of Muhammed’s mother? No, me neither. I can manage the names of two of his wives and his Christian concubine, plus his daughter, but not his mother. The matter was, however, of more than academic interest when gunmen took over the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi. According to witnesses, members of the public were lined up and then gunned down if they failed to name the mother of the founder of Islam or recite verses from the Koran. Those lucky enough to be able to speak Arabic — possibly passages from the Koran — were let go. The rest were fair game. Now, whatever else you can say about these individuals, I think we can agree, can’t we, that religion looms quite large in their world view?

It may not have been the smartest move to detain David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of Guardian ‘journalist’ Glenn Greenwald, under the Terrorism Act.  But the explosion of righteous anger over the episode is ridiculous. Starting with the outraged claim that Miranda was arrested only because of his connection with Greenwald. Wrong. Greenwald himself has previously told journalists that his partner assists him in his work. That present ‘work’ consists of engineering the leak of massive amounts of classified intelligence from a source – Edward Snowden – currently granted asylum in Moscow.

As though the sunny weather and the royal baby were not enough, here comes yet more good news. The European Union has finally banned the military wing of Hezbollah. This is something I have argued for often, including here, here, and here. After recent trials of Hezbollah operatives and Hezbollah operations – including the Bulgaria bombing – on European soil the decision did seem inevitable. Yet there is a cloud on the silver lining - which is that the EU, in somewhat characteristic fashion, has only managed to do a partly good thing. While they have banned the ‘military wing’ of Hezbollah they continue to allow the ‘political’ wing to fundraise and recruit in Europe.

David Cameron and Vladimir Putin have just concluded their pre G8 talks, the main topic of which was Syria. Cameron wants to use the next few days to try and persuade the Russians to stop backing Assad; the weapons they’ve been sending him have enabled him to gain the upper hand on the rebels militarily. Cameron instinctively wants to do something about the slaughter in the Levant for both strategic and moral reasons. As one figure intimately involved in British policy making on Syria told me earlier, ‘The one certainty is that, if nothing is done, not only will lives be lost, not only will Assad not negotiate, but we will also not stop radicalisation.

GCHQ’s use of the US monitoring system Prism is threatening to turn into a major political row. Douglas Alexander is demanding that William Hague come to the House of Commons to explain what GCHQ was doing and what the legal basis for it was. But this controversy is going to have an effect on coalition relations too. It is going to intensify Liberal Democrat opposition to the measures included in the Communications Data Bill. This comes at a time when David Cameron has decided, as he made clear in the Commons on Monday, that the measures in it are needed. In the United States, the Obama administration is pushing back against criticism of the programme.

The political response to the Woolwich murder is following two broad patterns. On the one hand, the party leaders make dignified, calm statements, tending almost to the banal. There was, for example, very little difference between the comments of Ed Miliband and those of Nigel Farage. Both condemned the murder, offered support to Drummer Rigby’s family and urged calm from all. Unity is not surprising: there is not much one can reasonably say about such events without jerking a knee and making oneself hostage to fortune. The beheading of an off-duty soldier is no more representative of Islam than the reaction of the English Defence League is representative of patriotism.

In a detailed interview on the Sunday Politics, Nick Clegg claimed that neither the Home Secretary nor Downing Street have ever proposed to him that Britain should temporarily leave the European Court of Human Rights so that it can deport Abu Qatada. Clegg was adamant that ‘no one has put a proposal to me.’ Under questioning from Andrew Neil, Clegg defended his decision to block any communications data legislation in the Queen’s Speech. He maintained that the proposals were ‘neither workable nor proportionate.’ Clegg conceded that the UKIP offer was ‘very seductive’ to voters. But he then attacked them for their flat tax proposal.