Terrorism

Why is the UK still supplying arms to those who helped fund the so-called Islamic State, and what leverage does it bring? In the Prime Minister’s statement to the House of Commons following the Nato summit over the weekend, he spoke of seeking a broad base of support through the UN. Yet there was no mention of military action—as opposed to diplomatic assistance—from Gulf States. Islamic State has been bankrolled by wealthy Gulf individuals from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, and their Governments have failed to act to prevent it. In March 2014, Nouri al-Maliki, the outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister, accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of being ‘at war with Iraq’. Six

A few days ago, one would have expected the first PMQs of term to be a rowdy affair as Labour went for Cameron over the Carswell defection. But the recent, hideous events in Iraq have changed all that and today’s PMQs was instead a sober, statesmanlike affair which reflected well on both Cameron and Miliband. listen to ‘PMQs: ‘Universal sense of revulsion’ at the murder of Steven Sotloff’ on Audioboo

The talks between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives on the anti-terror measures that David Cameron will unveil this afternoon have finally finished. There are a few more details to be thrashed out – crossing of Ts and dotting of Is rather than major policy decisions – but the two parties are basically there. That the talks have only broken up with just over an hour to go until the statement shows how contentious these measures have been in the Coalition. David Cameron’s press conference, in which he set out the heightened threat, was partly a softening-up exercise to push the Lib Dems into accepting what the security and intelligence

The Coalition parties are gearing up for a week of minding the gaps. Tomorrow, David Cameron plans to tell MPs about measures that he feels are necessary for plugging the gaps in Britain’s armoury. They’re gaps highlighted to him by the intelligence and security services, and where the Tories once said they would be very sceptical about gaps, whether they existed, and whether it was right to plug them, the Prime Minister seems pretty keen to listen to the spooks. But the Lib Dems are still cross about the gaps, and possibly cross about another change of heart from the Conservatives. That’s why Sir Menzies Campbell told the World this

It was not so much the announcements that David Cameron made in his press conference about the terror threat to the UK that were significant, but what he looks like he’s going to have to announce on Monday. The Prime Minister confirmed that the threat level to the UK has been raised from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’. But he also said that on Monday he will be unveiling new measures to address ‘gaps’ in the UK’s ‘armoury’: ‘I said very clearly last week that there would be no knee-jerk reactions. We will respond calmly and with purpose. And we’ll do so driven by the evidence and the importance of maintaining the

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi’s resignation” startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]I have never issued a call for violence before, and I’m certainly not going to start now. But I wonder if people might consider the following, purely hypothetical situation. In her resignation letter over the UK government not being anti-Israel enough for her, Sayeeda Warsi backed up her ‘case’ by writing: ‘Early evidence from the Home Office and others shows that the fallout of the current conflict and the potential for the crisis in Gaza and our response to it becoming a basis for radicalisation could have consequences for us for years to come.’ Let us ignore

The Hallett Review was published yesterday. This is the review ordered by the Prime Minister in February after the collapse of the trial of John Downey. Readers will remember that Downey was about to face trial over the 1982 Hyde Park bombing – in which four British soldiers were murdered – when his lawyers produced a letter from the Police Service of Northern Ireland saying that Downey was not being sought for any offences. This opened up the remarkable discovery that unbeknown to most people involved in the political process in Northern Ireland: that such ‘amnesty letters’ had been sent to almost 200 ‘on-the-runs’ (people being sought for terrorism offences