What's in a name? David Cameron nitpicks over Isis, Isil and Daesh
John Crace www.theguardian.com
Lingering impression was of ignorance disguised as expertise over what to call Islamic State, while George Osborne cashed in on the Greek crisis
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the Guardian
The House of Commons is sometimes at its best when it says nothing at all. If the debate on Tunisia had been limited to the minute’s silence held in memory of those killed in the terrorist attack in Sousse, then the sense of a cross-party dignified response might have lasted rather longer. But give politicians an opportunity to make capital out of a tragedy and some will find it irresistible.

To his credit, the prime minister was better than most. David Cameron has many failings but he does sometimes manage to tap in to the public mood and find the right words to express it. He is, though, getting himself into a terrible muddle over Islamic State. Having attacked the BBC and other news organisations on the Today programme for referring to Islamic State as Isis rather than Isil, he was at it again in the Commons.

In answer to a question from the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson on whether the correct terminology was neither Isis nor Isil but Daesh, the prime minister was again explicit. “I raised this with the BBC this morning,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll move them all the way to Daesh, so I think saying Isil is probably better than Islamic State because it is neither, in my view, Islamic or a state.”

It appears to have escaped Dave’s attention that the “Is” in both Isis and Isil stands for Islamic State. You might have thought the clue was in the “Is”, but Dave is, for some reason, more obsessed by the L for Levant than the S for Syria. Conservative Crispin Blunt and new chair of the foreign affairs select committee was quick to give the prime minister a gentle reminder that these things were best left to experts like him. “Daesh”, he said extravagantly. The oracle had spoken.

In the Commons, at least, Daesh is the new Isil, though Labour’s Khalid Mahmood upped the ante still further by saying that technically Daesh were neither Isis nor Isil because they were actually a breakaway sect of Kharijites. That intervention threw everyone into a panic – the situation was moving fast – and everyone, including Dave, decided Daesh should actually be called “Dash”. Expect a new counter-terrorism initiative tomorrow. Operation Slap Dash.

As a lesson in comparative religion, this all might have had some value, but the lingering impression was one of nitpicking ignorance disguised as expertise. The least of the problems in dealing with Isis is deciding on what to call it. For the Eurosceptics, it was an ideal opportunity to remind the prime minister that accepting any foreigners into the country was tantamount to giving in to Dash. Tory Andrew Rossindell argued for stronger borders and better fences. He didn’t say how tall a fence needs to be to defeat ideology or the internet, though he implied that 50 feet would probably do it. Genius.

George Osborne’s way of trying to be supportive of the Tunisian tourism industry was to kill off the Greek one. “Basically, you need to take cash for everything,” he said. “You can’t rely on the Greeks for anything.” Just think how much you would need for a week on the Rothschild’s yacht moored off Corfu.

Greece may be a crisis for the eurozone and a disaster for its people, but for the chancellor it is a huge unexpected bonus as it gives him free licence to increase the cuts in next week’s budget. Schadenfreude rang through almost every sentence as he described the scale of the problem. “There is uncertainty,” he said, trying not to laugh at his own understatement. “Five years ago the British economy was as dangerously exposed as the Greek one is now,” he continued to the amazement of even the Tories. There but for the grace of George...