.... Rather than repackaging a failed strategy, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, might have been better advised to consider whether it is worth retaining at all. Instead of setting up sports groups to persuade young men that they are part of the wider society, we need our institutions – schools, colleges, local government, the NHS, the police – to promote British democratic values and institutions without feeling guilty about it.
There is little in the review document that offers any practical assessment of whether – or how – it will work. The approach adopted by the last Labour government and now by the Coalition risks failing to achieve anything while at the same time patronising both Muslims and the rest of the country.
Extremism is best tackled not by throwing money at groups who we fear might otherwise produce terrorists but by unapologetically challenging everything they stand for. We should not need a strategy for that. [Telegraph View, The Telegraph] Read more
