Dan Hodges Declares War

[Update at end of post]

In the wake of the Paris attacks, it should be obvious that what ISIS, or whatever they’re called this week, want from the west is a knee-jerk reaction, a retaliation to show that their narrative - that this is a war between the two parties - is true, and above all a retaliation to act as yet another recruiting sergeant. For this reason, some commentators have called for cool heads and calm minds to prevail. But only some of them.

He's desperate, Dan

Over at the Telegraph, though, no such nicety is allowed to intrude into the increasingly confused world of their not all all celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges, who has taken the opportunity of the mass killings in the French capital to once again tell his dwindling band of readers that this means Jeremy Corbyn is even less fit to lead the Labour Party than Mil The Younger, which means really, really rubbish.

And it’s not as if we weren’t warned: “Today was not the day to discuss the politics of what happened in Paris. But … Anyone who fancies tweeting me ‘stop using Paris to attack Corbyn’ over the next couple of days - seriously, save your breath”. Obsession knows no bounds, eh? And it gets worse: “‘France, we stand in solidarity with you’. ‘Will you join us is attacking Isis in Syria?’. ‘Er...no. Sorry’”. Never heard of Vietnam, Dan?

You know, Vietnam, the conflict where we supported the USA but didn’t take part, the finesse being executed by Harold Wilson. The bloke who won more elections that your beloved Tone. But do go on. “It is currently official Labour policy to say to surviving members of ISIS Paris cell ‘guys, if you can make it to Syria, you're safe’”. Leave the dishonesty to others, Dan. They make it look less obvious.

“Just so I'm clear, given we've decided not to join France in Syrian air strikes, we're safe here in the UK. That's how it works, right?” Spain withdrew from the Iraq adventure after the March 11 2004 Madrid bombings. Tell us how many more such bombings Spain has suffered, Dan. “The reality is, if we had the political will we could militarily crush ISIS in 12 months”. It’ll all be over by Christmas, won’t it? And it gets yet worse.

“Even by the standards of the Corbyn cultists, their ‘Jihadi Jez’ outrage is beyond parody”. Yes, likening someone seeking peace to a jihadist is, like, so just fun, isn’t it? And then comes the inevitable “look over there” moment: “Corbyn wants a political settlement in wake of Paris. Can someone explain what political settlement we are supposed to reach with ISIS”. He was discussing Syria. Syria and ISIS are not the same thing.

“There is no solution to the ISIS threat that does not include killing most of them … Even if the civil war in Syria stopped in an hour, ISIS will still have to be defeated militarily”. We’ve had a “war on terror” for more than a decade. We’ve pumped tonnes and tonnes of bombs into ISIS territory. We’ve killed hundreds, if not thousands, of their fighters. It hasn’t worked. As Corbyn keeps saying, ultimately there has to be a political solution.

That’s why he is right, and Desperate Dan Hodges is wrong. No change there, then.

[UPDATE 1835 hours: as if to demonstrate that Hodges has once again called it wrong, Jim Waterson of BuzzFeed has told that Sky News ("first for breaking wind") has now, after a near-50,000 signature petition, taken down its story alleging that an "anonymous Labour source" had referred to Jeremy Corbyn as "Jihadi Jez".

What you will not hear from Desperate Dan]