Extremism – not just violent extremism – is the problem

Charles Moore has an important piece in the Telegraph today criticising Baroness Warsi’s muddle-headed speech [a speech which interestingly doesn’t appear on her page on the party website]. In it, he reveals that the Prime Minister himself has been devoting much thought to the question of how to deal with Islamic extremism. Charles writes that Cameron will give a significant speech on the matter in the next few weeks in which he’ll argue that the government and society need to tackle extremism per se, not just violent extremism.

This is welcome news. To say that extremism only becomes a problem when it turns violent is to miss the point. If you only ever address the symptoms you’ll never cure the disease.

There were people in the last Labour government who understood this, Ruth Kelly and Hazel Blears spring to mind. But they were too often outnumbered or not given sufficient support by Number 10. If Cameron is prepared to make the whole of government address the problem of extremism then we as a country might finally make some progress against the evil in our midst.