David Cameron, al-Qaida, and a thickening sense of dread

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/21/cameron-al-qaida-terror-franchises

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David Cameron talked on Monday about new al-Qaida "franchises" springing up all over the world. He made them sound like Starbucks, equally set on world domination, but even less likely to pay their taxes. He felt that one way we could tackle the problem was by "thickening" our relationship with other governments. He does love a neologism. Maybe it's to make us think he is up with the latest expert thinking.

"Prime minister, the president of Filthistan is on the phone." "Thicken him for me, will you, Heywood?"

We had, he reminded us, thickened the French and helped their incursion into Mali by lending them two transport aircraft, one of which sometimes works.

The curious words were slight distractions in what was a deeply worrying and worried statement about the Algerian massacre. The gist of it was that jihadists had moved away from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and were setting up in the Yemen, Somalia and north Africa. That's where the threat was now.

His prescription was less specific than it might have been. We needed to be "tough, intelligent and patient". Plus "realistic and hard-headed". These are not necessarily the qualities always associated with his administration, though you might give them a tick for their seemingly limitless patience in waiting for the economy to improve. (Thickening abroad, perhaps sickening at home.)

But it was a measured talk, and its very pessimism indicated a man who realises that there are no simple solutions, and that the problem is not going away. We are, he implied, in for a war lasting decades, shifting in shape, size and situation, perhaps impossible to win. It acknowledged the root of the problem: dysfunctional states, filled with disaffected young people without a future. This was the vacuum that al-Qaida rushed in to fill.

Malcolm Rifkind, former foreign secretary, praised the prime minister for being "sober and realistic", as opposed, presumably, to being drunk and away with the fairies.

Of course, there isn't any extra money for all this vacuum-filling and thickening. Peter Hain asked why the Foreign Office budget had been cut. Cameron replied that it hadn't been cut, not really. Hmm, depends how you crunch the numbers.

Andrew Mitchell made his first contribution since it turned out that he hadn't abused the police at length and had been forced to resign for no good reason. The former international aid minister thought the solution was more international aid. "You plebs," he didn't add. Richard Ottaway, chair of the foreign affairs committee, thought the same.

Mark Pritchard, who is not loved at No 10, began by "commending" the prime minister's response. It won't do him any good. His solution was to take the thousands of Malian people in the UK and "deploy them positively, in their own country," which was a subtle way of saying "send the lot home!"

Patrick Mercer asked if there was a threat of further terrorism here. "Their ambition and the risks they pose grow wider," Cameron said, which wasn't an answer, but was certainly scary. In fact the whole session was very chilling indeed.