Don’t expect to hear anything about Islamic State during the election campaign

Granted, you don’t really expect foreign policy to feature much in an election campaign – we’re not saints – but it’s still shaming the way that the biggest foreign policy issue simply doesn’t register on the radar right now. I refer obviously to Islamic State, the group that just keeps on giving when it comes to reasons to want them wiped out. It’s a toss up really whether you go for the recently exhumed mass graves of the soldiers they massacred in Tikrit, the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp they seized control of, the images they obligingly posted of themselves smashing artefacts at Hatra or the blowing up an Assyrian church over Easter. Take your pick.

And the response from the British Government? The last thing anyone heard was last month, when the MoD declared it would be sending 75  military trainers to train up Syrian rebels, ones that have been carefully screened for extremist Islamist tendencies and are fighting both IS and Syrian government forces.