First rule of warfare: Know thy enemy’s name

In the Commons, MPs held a debate about air strikes in Syria. Agreement, however, proved elusive. Not only about whether to launch air strikes, but about whom they’d be launching them at if they did.

Certainly they were all talking about the same enemy. It’s just that the enemy hasn’t got a universally accepted name. Last year it was called Islamic State, then IS, then Isis, then Isil. Increasingly it gets called Daesh. The BBC, however, has gone on calling it “Islamic State”, for which it’s been rebuked by David Cameron, because in the Prime Minister’s view the use of “Islamic State” helps validate the terrorists’ claim to statehood. (Mr Cameron’s claim would probably sound stronger if he himself didn’t insist on calling the terrorists “Isil”, the first two letters of which stand for “Islamic State”.)

Yesterday’s debate was led by Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary. The day before, on Radio 4’s World at

One, he’d apparently attempted to cover as many bases as possible by calling the enemy Islamic Isil. At one point yesterday he called them Isil Daesh. At another point, Andrew Mitchell, the one-time international development secretary, called them Daesh Isil.

Vernon Coaker, the shadow defence secretary, called them Daesh, Isil and “Islamic, er …” Several MPs agreed it should just be Daesh. They couldn’t, however, agree how to pronounce it. Clearly this is not a satisfactory state of affairs. Something must be done. To meet the BBC’s need for impartiality while recognising the Prime Minister’s concerns about Islamist propaganda, I propose that from now on the terrorists be referred to as The So-Called Islamic-But-Not-Truly-Islamic State-But-Not-Truly-a-State. Or TSCIBNTISBNTAS for short.

Mr Fallon argued that Britain should consider bombing TSCIBNTISBNTAS in Syria. Two years ago the Government wanted to bomb President Assad; now they want to bomb his enemies, at the risk of helping the man they wanted to bomb the first time.

The Government, said Mr Fallon, was determined to prevent homegrown converts to Islamism from leaving Britain. “Last year, the Home Secretary removed 24 passports from individuals intending to travel for terrorism-related activity.” He sounded proud of this record, although I don’t know why. I’d have thought the Government should be doing the opposite. If there are wannabe terrorists in this country, surely we want to get them out of here as quickly as possible.