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Why won’t Keir Starmer use the word ‘terrorist’?

The Spectator
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EXPLORE THE ISSUE 25 January 2025
issue 25 January 2025

Why does Keir Starmer find it so hard to use the word ‘terrorist’ when talking about a man who buys ricin and a machete online, reads up about killing people in an al Qaeda training manual – and then goes out and stabs to death three young girls attending a dance class? When asked this week whether he regarded the crimes committed by Axel Rudakubana as a terrorist act, the Prime Minister couldn’t quite bring himself to do so, instead referring to it as an act of ‘extreme violence clearly intended to terrorise’.

The fight against terrorism seems to have been...

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