paris Archives

Thursday

19 Nov 2015

A better way

To say that the Paris attacks could have happened in Britain is not enough. Such attacks are being attempted here with terrifying regularity —seven have been thwarted so far this year alone. MI5’s official assessment is that a terrorist attack on British soil is ‘highly likely’. Our security services have so far been very good at keeping us safe. But as the IRA famously put it, spies have to be lucky all of the time, terrorists have to be lucky only once. So it is impossible for Britain to view events on the continent with any sense of complacency. Still, the Prime Minister was justified in pointing out last week that

Steerpike

Paris terrorism photos not en Vogue, says magazine’s picture editor

In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, many have been left asking why they happened and what can be done to prevent another deadly massacre. Meanwhile some — including Jeremy Corbyn — have asked why terrorist attacks in non-European countries appear to attract less attention. However, for one Vogue fashion journalist the question on her lips is to do with another matter entirely: why weren’t there any photos of a high standard? Alessia Glaviano — Vogue Italia‘s senior photo editor — has taken to the net to ask why the photos documenting the attack were not of a higher standard. Glaviano — who was in Paris at the time — says

Theo Hobson

Has ‘Islam’s reformation’ really begun?

Usama Hasan, an imam attached to the Quilliam Foundation, argues in the Times that Islam is steadily adapting to modernity. It has been doing so since the nineteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire launched certain reforms. Islam should not be judged by a few marginal hiccups in this process. ‘Isis follows a fundamentalist and selective reading of scripture which is ahistorical and heretical. They are linked to Islam and the Koran in the way the Ku Klux Klan and Anders Breivik are linked to Christianity and the Bible.’ This is not helpful. For extremely reactionary Christians have not gained power in a large proportion of the traditionally Christian world. He

Toby Young

Western liberalism is no match for the Islamic Game of Thrones

As a graduate student in the Harvard Government Department in the late 1980s, I became slightly jaded about the number of visiting professors who warned about the imminent demise of the West. The thrust of their arguments was nearly always the same. The secular liberal values we cherish, such as freedom of speech and the separation of church and state, won’t survive in the face of growing, religious disenchantment with modernity unless they’re rooted in something more meaningful than rational individualism. They were talking about Islamic Fundamentalism, obviously, although sometimes they threw in Christian Fundamentalism as well in order not to seem ‘Orientalist’ or ‘ethnocentric’. These political scientists were, without exception,

Charles Moore

Jeremy Corbyn is the political version of a creationist

When Jeremy Corbyn says it is better to bring people to trial than to shoot them, he is right. So one might feel a little sorry for him as the critics attack his reaction to the Paris events. But in fact the critics are correct, for the wrong reason. It is not Mr Corbyn’s concern for restraint and due process which are the problem. It is the question of where his sympathies really lie, of what story he thinks all these things tell. Every single time that a terrorist act is committed (unless, of course, it be a right-wing one, like that of Anders Breivik), Mr Corbyn locates the ill

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks

Is Jeremy Corbyn a peacenik or is he only interested in badmouthing the West? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Nick Cohen and Freddy Gray discuss the Paris terrorist attacks and the response from British politicians. Was the Labour leader right to shift his position on shoot to kill? What does his association with Stop The War mean for the party? And has Corbyn’s response to the events in Paris weakened his leadership? Toby Young and Kemi Badenoch also discuss integration, multiculturalism and whether failures in these areas have played a role in the growth of Isis. How can the West counter the arguments made by Islamists? And to what extent is Isis Islamic? James Forsyth and Ben Judah also discuss Barack Obama’s failure

Douglas Murray

France’s civil war…

In the wake of the massacre in Paris, President François Hollande said that France was ‘at war’ — and that it must be fought both inside his country and outside in the Middle East. As the French air force began dropping bombs on Raqqa in Syria, another operation was under way in towns and cities across France: 168 raids in two days. A battle on two fronts has begun. Chartres cathedral is one of the great monuments of western civilisation, but Chartres was also home to one of the Bataclan theatre suicide bombers. A man from the same area died last summer in Syria, fighting for Isis. In Lyon, theraids

James Forsyth

Obama’s failure is Putin’s opportunity

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/parisattacksaftermath/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Ben Judah discuss whether the West should work with Putin” startat=824] Listen [/audioplayer]The principal strategic objective in the war on terror has been a failure. Ever since 9/11, the aim has been to deny terrorists sanctuary. That, after all, is why the United States and Britain went into Afghanistan — troops were sent in only after the Taliban refused to hand over the al-Qaeda leadership and shut down the terrorist training camps. But now, a large terrorist enclave exists in the very heart of the Middle East. President Obama’s reaction to this massive strategic failure has been lack-lustre. His main concern is to stress that,

Wednesday

18 Nov 2015

James Forsyth

PMQs: Jeremy Corbyn’s views on security are only harming Labour

One moment from PMQs today will stick in the mind for a long time. After Corbyn had asked his last question, Cameron declared ‘Hasn’t it come to something when the leader of the opposition thinks that the police, when confronted by a Kalashnikov-waving terrorist isn’t sure what the reaction should be?’ At that point, the Labour front bench just looked utterly dejected and beaten. They will soon have to decide how much longer they can let this farce continue for. If they do not act soon, then the damage done to the Labour party might be irreversible. The essential problem is that Jeremy Corbyn’s views on foreign policy and security

Lara Prendergast

Yes, we wear poppies. But we don’t print our faces onto them

‘What’s worse: people who add French flags to their Facebook profiles, or those who sneer at them?’ asks my colleague Isabel Hardman on Coffee House today. ‘Haven’t we always offered small gestures to commemorate sad events? Or to show respect? Why do we buy poppies in November, and feel under-dressed without them?’ In some ways, I agree with Isabel – it is normal to want to show respect, and to feel an emotional response to such serious events. What troubles me about the profile picture change is not so much the act – had the option been to change your profile picture simply to a Tricolore, without your face behind it,

Maurice Mcleod

Why I didn’t sing La Marseillaise last night

When Patrice Evra and the French national football team lined up at Wembley last night, it was a moment of poignant defiance which earned an instant place in sporting iconography. I shed a tear, but I didn’t sing La Marseillaise. When horrendous things like the attacks on Paris happen, our first instincts are to offer solidarity and what help we can. And, yes, to hit back. The night after the attack, France launched 20 separate air strikes on what it said were Isis strongholds in Syria. And at home, an extra 115,000 gendarmes were deployed across France, leading to hundreds of raids with dozens of arrests. In the days following attacks on the West,

Isabel Hardman

What’s worse: people who add French flags to their Facebook profiles, or those who sneer at them?

Robert Frost famously defined poetry as the moment when emotion finds thought, and the thought finds words. But in the era of social media, who needs words? As several million Brits have been discovering this week, there is a way of showing your emotional sympathy with the French. Simply put a Tricolore filter on your Facebook page. A simple, free and wordless way of advertising your feelings to the world. At first glance, this trend falls into the grand tradition of fatuous social media trends like #refugeeswelcome, #nomakeupselfie and Ice Bucket Challenges, where people make sure that they are the centre of attention (and looking suspiciously good while they’re at it)

Douglas Murray

Politicians are finally starting to admit a link between Islam and the extremists

One step forward, one step back. Theresa May says in Parliament that the Paris attacks have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. And on the same day, later in the evening, her boss quite rightly says: ‘It is not good enough to say simply that Islam is a religion of peace and then to deny any connection between the religion of Islam and the extremists. Why? Because these extremists are self-identifying as Muslims.’ In saying this the Prime Minister was echoing the sensible and intelligent comments of one of his ministers – Sajid Javid – who rightly said in January after the last massacre in Paris: ‘The lazy answer would be to

Sebastian Payne

Public backs David Cameron on Syrian airstrikes, according to new poll

The terrorist attacks in Paris appear to have shifted public attitudes on both refugees and airstrikes. According to a new poll from the Times/YouGov, 20 per cent think we should accept more refugees — down 16 points from September — while almost half said we should accept fewer or none at all, which is a 22 point increase from September. Other factors may have played into this shift in opinion but what has happened in Paris will surely have played a big part in it. The poll also reveals that the public backs the decision to to kill Mohammed Emwazi, aka Jihadi John, via a drone strike. 76 per cent said it was the

Tuesday

17 Nov 2015

Simon Barnes

The England vs France match was a glorious response to terrorism

Ain’t it rum? Last week sport was morally bankrupt, finished, no longer worthy of taking up an intelligent person’s time for a single minute. This week it’s shining out as one of the glories of the human spirit. And yet sport can cope with the contradiction quite effortlessly. It’s hard to know the worst thing in athletics right now, but it’s either the fact that Russia has been implicated in a state-run doping programme or the possibility that the former president of the sport’s world governing body is accused of taking bribes to cover it up. In football the acronym of Fifa, football’s world governing body, means corruption: nothing more,

Sebastian Payne

Labour MPs attack Stop The War and Corbyn’s views on terrorism

Labour MPs appear to be just as annoyed by Jeremy Corbyn’s links to the Stop The War coalition as they are about his comments on shoot to kill. In the questions following David Cameron’s Commons statement on the Paris attacks, several MPs used the opportunity to make coded attacks on Stop The War for a blog it published, titled ‘Paris reaps whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East’. It has been since been removed (cached version here) and Corbyn said he was glad it was deleted — but he has yet to condemn the fact it was published in the first place. Ian Austin, the MP for

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: Britain needs to take action against Islamic State in Syria

Senior politicians have so far been rather cautious in their response to the Paris attacks. But today David Cameron gave a much more robust and intentional statement on the British reaction to what happened on Friday night. He used his slot in the Commons to re-state the case for British involvement in military action against Islamic State in Syria, and said that he would be setting out in detail his strategy and reasons for getting involved in the coming days. It is clear that the Prime Minister wants to push for a vote on this soon, and given he will not bring a vote to the Commons unless he believes

Freddy Gray

By opposing shoot-to-kill, Jeremy Corbyn has shown he is a serious politician

There is nothing wrong with Jeremy Corbyn saying he ‘isn’t happy’ with a shoot-to-kill policy. On the contrary, it shows once again that he is a man of principle. We may not agree with, or like, his principles — but can we at least recognise that, unlike his opponents, he is not bending to the national mood? He is not willing to ditch his integrity in order to ease the public’s fear and sate our lust for a violent response to terror. For Corbyn’s haters on the Labour right, his position proves once again that he is not a ‘serious’ person. For one of his shadow cabinet, his position even makes

Monday

16 Nov 2015

James Forsyth

Theresa May: the Paris attacks ‘have nothing to do with Islam’

On a day when Jeremy Corbyn has been making clear his concerns about both the government’s use of drones and any shoot-to-kill policy for terrorists on British streets, Theresa May’s statement on the Paris attacks was striking for the level of cross-party agreement. Andy Burnham paid generous tribute to the Home Secretary and pledged Labour’s support for her anti-terror crackdown. The only discordant note came on the question of police funding. Burnham aligned himself with Bernard Hogan-Howe’s warning that cuts of more than 10 percent to police funding would make it harder to keep the streets safe. May set out how the police here would ‘intensify’ their approach to big

Isabel Hardman

Burnham attacks May over police cuts at Home Office questions

It was inevitable that Theresa May would face demands to rethink police cuts at Home Office questions this afternoon. And Labour did indeed make this its main line of attack in the Commons, with Andy Burnham urging the Home Secretary to reconsider reductions in police numbers that might be being considered in the Comprehensive Spending Review. Burnham has pursued this issue with some gusto since taking the Shadow Home Secretary brief, as it is the one matter where he can be reasonably tub thumping and Burnhamish. Today he was sombre, but it was clear that May was aware that the Paris attacks have made an extremely difficult set of cuts