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 connection. They [terrorists] make the connection.’
Our job, he suggested, is to unpick this ideological misconception in learned debate. He hailed ‘Islamic scholars’ for the labours they’ve devoted to this important area of the conflict. Which sounded plain weird. Does he think we’ll defeat Islamic State by bombarding Raqqa with cogently argued theological disquisitions and peer-reviewed journals exposing their false assumptions about Mohammedan eschatology?
Corbs then moved to the phone-in part of his performance.
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