"One was that the speaker rejected the claim that this would make UK more of a target, because we were already a prime target. Which is clearly nonsense because it is the kind of thing you can always have more of. There were, it seems, seven threats against the UK prevented last year. With more people committed to it, it could be seventeen, or seventy."

The UK and the USA have been regarded as being prime targets since 1970 - nothing to do with Afghanistan and nothing to do with Iraq. That is the reality and the threat intensified as various Arab States learned to live with their neighbours and Arafat started feeling the cold. We "the west" were regarded as being an easy target, our legal system, our concern for humanity, our tolerance and respect for the rights of the individual are all seen as being major weaknesses.

The prevention of seven attacks with none actually blossoming into fruition means that the attacks planned were all thwarted. Follow Corbyn's lead and we leave them alone to get on with their planning and training and we may yet have our own 9/11 scale attack. Cameron has taken the other option, attack them and harry them, give them something to think about - make them nervously peer over their shoulders and sneak looks round corners as they will not know where the next blow might fall - far better to have your enemy do that than hand him the initiative to strike as and when he wants.


"So could this action persuade Daesh to dedicate more planners to attacking the UK? Clearly it could.

Not if we are bombing the hell out of their training camps.

"Oddly enough the best reason to think it might not came from a reporter in Damascus who said there had not been a mention of the upcoming British vote in any of the papers and no-one she spoke knew there was a vote. It suggests a level of indifference from the Syrian viewpoint which is at odds with our self-importance."

Depends on whether or not one is naive enough to believe that a free press exists in Assad's capital city that would be permitted to print or report news from round the world uncensored.