Politics

The all-too-predictable reaction to David Cameron’s speech on the importance of tackling the ideology of radical Islam has been depressing. Much of what he said in Munich should be entirely uncontroversial. For too long, Whitehall has been prepared to deal with the self-appointed gatekeepers of the Muslim community without asking serious questions about their political heritage or commitment to democratic values. The following passage in the speech marks a crucially important shift in British policy in this area: “Let’s properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights – including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do

As shocks go, Politician Uses the Correct Statistic is not particularly electric stuff. But I was struck nonetheless by Cameron’s claim in his speech earlier that, “we still have the fourth largest military budget in the world.” You see, Gordon Brown used to exaggerate this figure by various sneaky methods – and so, by his account, we’d be second in the military spending league table, rather than around fifth. Whereas Cameron had it spot on. Here’s what the latest top ten looks like, going off the best measurement that the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute knows (see their explanation here): On the face of it, this would appear to be

“State multiculturalism has failed.” Angela Merkel put voice to that sentiment last October. Now it David Cameron’s turn to do the same. In a speech in Munich today, the Prime Minister has taken a rhetorical torch to Islamic extremism. “Frankly,” he says, “we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism.” It is, at the very least, a significant political moment. What Cameron is doing here – as explained by Charles Moore and Paul Goodman – is publicly signing up to a philosophy of the world. It is a philosophy that rejects the idea that extremism should simply be contained. Instead,