Syria

David Cameron: British ISIL fighter killed by drone strike in ‘self-defence’

David Cameron has just informed the House of Commons that an RAF drone killed several ISIL fighters in Syria in a targeted strike in Syria. Two of those killed were British citizens who Cameron said were planning terrorist strikes against this country. He called this a lawful act of ‘self defence’ and stressed that it was targeted and that he would return to the Commons to seek permission for more generalised bombing of ISIL in Syria. It will be interesting to see whether Jeremy Corbyn chooses to intervene in the Commons debate that is following this revelation. More to follow…

Mitchell and Cooper present two different paths on dealing with Syria

It’s back to school day in Westminster and one of the first items on the agenda will be David Cameron’s announcement on accepting more Syrian refugees. Exactly how many extra asylum seekers Britain will take in is, according to the Sunday Times, likely to be between 10,000 and 20,000. Someone who is particularly pleased with this is Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary and Labour leadership contender. Cooper first called for 10,000 refugees in a speech on the crisis last week and on the Today programme, she welcomed the PM’s response but urged him to do as much as possible: ‘That would be really helpful if he does…you know I’ve called for it to be 10,000 in the past

It’s easy to say that Aylan Kurdi died due to our lack of compassion. But the reality is far more complicated

Just a thought: what if Aylan Kurdi, the poor drowned three year old child whose picture changed Europe – we are told – when it comes to the fate of Syrian refugees, had been, say, Afghan rather than Syrian? Or Eritrean, or indeed Pakistani? Quite possible, you know. Perhaps half of the migrants coming to Europe across the Mediterranean are not actually Syrian. Many of them are now arriving in German towns, expecting, and receiving, welcome and the promise of residency but may in fact be sent packing if the Germans stick to the letter of their bending of the Dublin Agreement. Would our entire foreign and asylum policy been

Alex Massie

The plight of Syria’s refugees deserves more than your good intentions and virtue signalling

I suppose it should not be a surprise that the virtue signalling over the appalling plight of Syrian refugees displaced by that country’s monstrous civil war has now reached fresh heights of absurdity. Nor that some of the press coverage of this dreadful crisis is edging towards a post-Diana level of mawkishness. One front page this morning shouts at David Cameron, demanding the Prime Minister SHOW YOUR HUMANITY. I mean, really. Then, on ITV’s Murnaghan programme this morning, Nicola Sturgeon and Yvette Cooper were asked if they would house Syrian refugees in their own homes. Obviously they had to say yes and we may now expect the same question to be asked of every politician in

The Great Migration is a sign of increasing wealth, not abject poverty

The migration crisis is about more than Syria. A few weeks ago, Theresa May repeated one of the biggest mistakes in politics: thinking that third-world development will somehow mean fewer migrants. In a Daily Telegraph article, she argued that:- ‘We must help African countries to develop economic and social opportunities so that people want to stay.’ Give aid, not shelter, runs the argument – and she’s not the first to make it. ‘As the benefits of economic growth are spread in Mexico,’ Bill Clinton once assured Americans, ‘there will be less illegal immigration because more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home.’ When José Manuel Barroso led

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron confirms Britain will take ‘thousands more Syrian refugees’

One of the notable things about David Cameron in the months after winning the election has been quite how impatient and keen he is to get on with important reforms. As I wrote last week, the Prime Minister seems to have been invigorated by his victory, rather than lapsing into complacency – and that is largely a very good thing. But on one issue, he hasn’t stayed quite up to speed. Perhaps it’s because it’s not a domestic reform issue, or perhaps it’s because it relates to a question that politicians seem increasingly reluctant to address, which is Britain’s role in the world, but whatever it is, the government has

Ukip candidate blames Syrian boy’s death on his parents: ‘queue jumping costs’

After a young Syrian child was photographed washed up dead on a Turkish beach, David Cameron has been the subject of much vitriol as members of the public and politicians alike urge him to do more to help refugees. However, it is a former Ukip candidate who has attracted the most furore on the topic. Peter Bucklitsch, Ukip’s election candidate for Wimbledon, has taken to Twitter to claim that the boy’s parents are to blame for his death because they tried to take him to Europe. Bucklitsch says three-year-old Aylan Kurdi was ‘well clothed and well fed’, and that he died because ‘his parents were greedy for the good life in Europe,’ adding that ‘queue

Brendan O’Neill

Sharing a photo of a dead Syrian child isn’t compassionate, it’s narcissistic

Have you seen the dead Syrian child yet? Look at his lifeless body. His head buried in the sand. His sad, resigned posture after he and his family made the treacherous journey from Syria to Turkey only to wash up dead on a Turkish beach. Isn’t this just the saddest photo you’ve ever seen? And gross too? Quick, share it! Show it to your friends — on Twitter, Facebook — so that they will feel sad and grossed-out too. Gather round, everyone: stare at the dead Syrian child. We all know about the problem of sexual pornography on the internet. Now we need to talk about the problem of moral pornography. And

Loose women

Late Night Woman’s Hour has created a Twitter storm with its twice-weekly (Thursdays and Fridays) doses of ‘mischievous and unbridled conversation’. The 11 p.m.–midnight slot is an ideal opportunity for cardigans to be unbuttoned and tongues unloosed, a chance to show that Radio 4’s venerable magazine programme for women can still shake up the station. Lauren Laverne was brought in from 6 Music to host the first few editions, signalling that there would be nothing mumsy about these hour-long chats around the table with a selection of well-chosen guests. Her style is refreshingly different, frank and a little bit cheeky, not at all Radio 4. How could it be when

Forget Chilcot

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/jeremycorbynsbritain/media.mp3″ title=”Peter Hitchens and Fraser Nelson debate whether the Chilcot report needs to be published” startat=1916] Listen [/audioplayer]It might actually be better if Sir John Chilcot’s report is never published. I for one can no longer be bothered to be annoyed (though I used to be) by the increasingly comical excuses for its non-appearance. We all know the real reason is that the Iraq war was the product of lies, vainglory and creeping to the Americans, but they don’t want to admit it. I suspect Sir John and his colleagues would be more hurt by a patronising acceptance that they are a hopeless embarrassment than by any more anger.

The Tories are playing a risky game with their ‘hostile environment’ policy on migration

It comes to something when the rather bizarre Labour leadership contest forces David Cameron to defend his government’s approach to the refugee crisis. Yesterday Yvette Cooper described ministers’ refusal to take more refugees as ‘cowardly’ and ‘immoral’, and today the Prime Minister insisted that ‘I don’t think there is an answer that can be achieved simply by taking more and more refugees’. He said: ‘We have taken a number of genuine asylum seekers from Syrian refugee camps, we keep that under review, but we think the most important thing is to try to bring peace and stability to that part of the world.’ Incidentally, the Prime Minister’s favourite economist Paul

Here’s the answer to your migrant crisis, Mr Cameron

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/howtofixtherefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Paul Collier and Douglas Murray discuss how to fix the migrant crisis” startat=32] Listen [/audioplayer]For all its difficulties, Europe is prosperous and safe: one of the best places on Earth. Many other societies have yet to achieve this happy state: some are murderous and poor. Two of the most troubled zones in the world are near Europe: the Middle East, and the Sahelian belt which spans northern Africa. Unsurprisingly, many of the people who live in these societies would rather live in Europe. Impeded by immigration controls, a small minority of this group are taking matters into their own hands, trying to enter Europe illegally by boat across

Why don’t we launch a Kindertransport scheme for Syrians?

I never knew my paternal grandfather, who was apparently a bitter, angry right-wing journalist who thought the world was going to hell; although as this was the 1930s, he was pretty much right. Almost the only thing I remember being told is that in 1938 he and my grandmother took in an Austrian boy as part of a scheme in which 20,000 Jewish children were taken away from Hitler. (I only heard this story from my mum, as my father was too English to talk about his parents, and felt rather less uncomfortable in war-torn Beirut or Biafra than actually talking about his own emotions.) I don’t know what happened to

Sorry Owen Jones, but your moral grandstanding won’t solve the migrant crisis

I’m getting tired of the self-righteousness of Owen Jones. His response to the terrible spate of deaths of people fleeing Syria and Africa is to imply that if only everyone were as moral as him, the problem would be solved. He seems to think that the key cause of these people’s deaths is that many people in Britain call them by the wrong word. To call them ‘migrants’, he says, shows a total disregard for their humanity. ‘Those of us who want more sympathetic treatment of people fleeing desperate situations have failed to win over public opinion, and the cost of that is death.’  The implication is that if his right-on

Remembering Khaled al-Asaad, the Syrian archaeologist who dared to stand up to Isis

Erudite and bespectacled, he was the sort of Arab the Islamic State loathed. Khaled al-Asaad, an 81-year old archaeologist, was for the past four decades inseparable from Palmyra’s ancient ruins. Beheaded in part for his role shielding them from the militants, they strung his headless body up on Graeco-Roman columns he once restored. His remains dangle there still. On the coat-tails of a pornography of violence which saw the immolation of a captured pilot and the sexual enslavement of a captured aid worker before her murder, Isis still found, somehow, a way to shock. Four army lorries left Palmyra for Damascus the night before the town fell, evacuating as many objects as possible from

Muslims in the UK are attacking mosques. Does that make them Islamophobic?

The Times today reports that leading Muslim clerics in the UK are warning that ‘religious sectarianism is on the rise in Britain’s Muslim community and threatens to spill over into violent crime and terrorism’.  An investigation by the paper ‘found a sharp but largely hidden rise in sectarian tensions between the minority Shia community and the dominant Sunni groups’. I must say that I am shocked – really shocked – by this.  Like everyone else, I had always assumed that if you allowed very large numbers of people with totally different beliefs into this country then in no time they would be down the local pub and fully integrated loyal

Déjà-lu in today’s Times — but where was the Spectator’s credit?

Mr S couldn’t help but notice that the Times made for familiar reading this morning. A leader titled ‘Ending the Exodus’ suggested that the government ought to ‘Give Syrian refugees the right to work and they will stay close to home’: ‘It is the apparent hopelessness of life in these camps that is propelling Syrians towards Europe. Over the years parents have seen children receive often skimpy education, their teenage boys drifting back to Syria to fight. Paternal authority is collapsing. Under the circumstances scraping together funds to pay people-smugglers appears a rational choice. The western priority should be to end the sense of hopelessness in the camps. Above all, these

The Calais crisis needs a better response than fences and dogs, Prime Minister

David Cameron should be in real trouble over Calais. It goes to the heart of two of the central issues by which British voters judge governments: are you competent and can you control immigration. Judging by the unstoppable growth of the chaotic ‘Jungle‘, the increasing number of assaults on Eurotunnel staff and the rising number of tragic and needless deaths, we know the answer to the competence question. To paraphrase Sam Goldwyn, there are two words for the government: incompetent. Every time a minister comes on the radio or TV to explain what the government is doing, I immediately think ‘who is that useless Lib Dem junior minister? No 10

Yet another tragedy in the Mediterranean. Here’s an actual rescue plan

Another week, another appalling boat disaster in the Mediterranean, another round of the same tired row on migration. Yesterday a boat carrying 600 people sank off the coast of Libya; 400 people were rescued, the rest are feared dead, trapped in the belly of the boat. This morning the same round of cliches are being trotted out. The pro-immigration lobby says our restrictive policies are cruel. The anti-immigration brigade say we must not encourage masses of people to come. But the migrant crisis is too great for such shallow responses. In this week’s Spectator, Paul Collier says that this ‘lazy thinking’ gets us nowhere. He has an alternative, and it involves more than

A real rescue plan

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/howtofixtherefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Paul Collier and Douglas Murray discuss how to fix the migrant crisis” startat=32] Listen [/audioplayer]For all its difficulties, Europe is prosperous and safe: one of the best places on Earth. Many other societies have yet to achieve this happy state: some are murderous and poor. Two of the most troubled zones in the world are near Europe: the Middle East, and the Sahelian belt which spans northern Africa. Unsurprisingly, many of the people who live in these societies would rather live in Europe. Impeded by immigration controls, a small minority of this group are taking matters into their own hands, trying to enter Europe illegally by boat across