Readers of this blog will know I am all in favour of the government dropping the phrase "The war on terror". I am pleased Hilary Benn?? will be saying as much today. Calling it a war on terror glorifies the terrorists, and can lead to inappropriate thinking about how best to counter the terrorist threat. Invading and bombing some of the societies that harbour terrorists is not the way to stop this threat.

??I want to see?? the government means it when it says "No more war on terror". It will require?? a different approach to?? tackling terrorism at home and abroad. Any approach must be intelligence led. We need to eavesdrop, infiltrate and spy on the terrrorist networks. We need advance warning of terrorist activities so there can be a police response. We need to find, arrest and try these people.

At home we need to alienate the terrorists from the local community, by ensuring??that those who might fall prey to the terrorist recruiting camapign instead find more worthwhile ways of spending their time. You squeeze and finally kill a terrorist movement by preventing it having easy access to friendly communities at home which harbour and support its activities.

If we had proper control of our borders we could?? also check or prevent people from going abroad to overseas terrorist training camps. With proper intelligence we could know who went for several weeks at a time for Al Quaeda training. Why let them back in if they insist on doing this??? Or if you must let them back in, shouldn’t they immediately stand trial on a charge of training to be terrorists?

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