Soft on terror

Home Secretary Amber Rudd is regularly spoken of as a potential successor to Theresa May. But in one respect at least, the two are interchangeable.

As Home Secretary, both have simply stood by and watched while the flag of Hezbollah is paraded on the streets of London. The military wing of the terror organisation is banned. In a ludicrous fiction, its so-called political wing is not. But not only are the flags interchangeable, even Hezbollah no longer seriously maintains there is a difference.

One of its leaders recently admitted: “Everyone knows that Hezbollah’s political and military wings are one and the same”. London mayor Sadiq Khan was absolutely right to write to the Home Secretary to ask her to end this fiction, and Ms Rudd was absolutely wrong to ignore his request.

After the London Bridge terrorist murders, Theresa May said “enough was enough”, promising an end to the kid glove treatment of terrorist sympathisers. The continued presence of Hezbollah flags on the streets of London and the government’s repeated failure to do anything to stop it,

Historic appetite

The pulse quickens at the prospect of any  new book by Simon Schama.

When it is the latest volume in his history of the Jews, the anticipation is all the greater.

It is little surprise that tickets for his lecture commemorating the centenary of the Balfour Declaration sold out within seconds — and welcome that it will be streamed online so that all those who want to hear his wisdom will be able to.