Syria

I’d just like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to our heir to the throne, Prince Charles, for, as he put it, spending ‘twenty years’ trying to ‘build bridges between Islam and Christianity and (to) dispel ignorance and misunderstanding.’ Sadly, he has concluded that this noble endeavour was in vain and that Christians are being persecuted right, left and centre (or indeed wherever they are unfortunate enough to live in Muslim countries). Still, how kind of him to have tried. The thought of Prince Charles dispelling ignorance on any topic, let alone this one, is a captivating one. He seems to have gone about this particular

Home A storm passed over England, with plenty of warning. The strongest gust, of 99mph, was recorded at Needles Old Battery, Isle of Wight. Of 570,000 households that lost power, 160,000 were left without it by sunset. About 200 trees fell on railway lines. A crane collapsed on to the roof of the Cabinet Office in Whitehall. A fourth big energy company, of Britain’s six, announced price rises, making the average increase 9.1 per cent. Tony Cocker, the chief executive of E.on, told the Commons energy committee that he had written to David Cameron, the Prime Minister, suggesting a full investigation of the market. A woman intent upon visiting the

 New York Libyans are among the most civilised people on earth. When a Russian hooker (I assume) killed a Libyan Air Force officer, a mob stormed the Russian embassy seeking revenge. They failed, but not for lack of trying. This time last year, another mob murdered the American ambassador and three others in a similar attack, although no Yankee gal had harmed any Libyan flier. The civilised Libyans also did democracy proud when they captured Gaddafi. They shot him up the bum with an AK47, dispensing with a boring trial. The bad guy that got away is Hannibal Gaddafi, who with wifey used to beat up and torture Filipino servants

Not so long ago politicians were hailing the end of al-Qaeda and the global jihad movement. By the middle of 2011, key ideologues like Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki were dead. Arab Street also appeared to have embraced peaceful protest, with popular uprisings unseating seemingly entrenched regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. A new dawn, we were told, was breaking. The weekend’s events have brought that hopeless optimism into sharp relief. The terrorist siege of the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya continues, with around 70 people dead so far. Elsewhere, at least 80 Christians were killed in a suicide attack outside a church in the Pakistani city of Peshawar yesterday.

The looming centenary of the outbreak of the first world war offers an opportunity to break away from the Blackadder/Oh! What a Lovely War vision, which dominates popular perceptions. Nobody sane suggests a celebration. But, in place of the government’s professed ‘non-judgmental’ approach to commemoration, ministers could assert that although the war was assuredly ghastly, it was not futile. Whatever the shortcomings of the Treaty of Versailles, a peace imposed by a victorious Germany would have been much worse. David Cameron often mentions with pride Britain’s role in resisting Hitler. In 2014, it would be good to hear him acknowledge that Britain, and those who died in her name, were

Hats off to the Second City Network for the brilliant video above. The funny thing about the great Syria intervention saga has been the number of astoundingly smug and normally dovish left-liberal types who have been cheering on a US-led strike. Those who would usually be first to cry ‘western imperialism’ have in this instance been desperate for the West to flex its military muscle. Is it because of chemical weapons? Possibly, but I doubt they’d feel the same way if a Republican was calling for action. ‘Because Obama’ seems as good a reason as any.