Defeating ISIS

HOW can we stop them?

How can we prevent lone-wolf  terrorists from carrying out mass slaughter so simply and with weapons no more ­sophisticated  than a truck?

The short, depressing answer is we can’t.

Of course we should continue to give our spooks every power to watch suspects and scour the web for content intended to radicalise. We can enhance security at key events and locations.

We must continue to encourage all Muslims and their imams to counter the extreme interpretations of the Koran which  brainwash young hotheads.

But these massacres in France and elsewhere could easily happen here.

When Theresa May says we must yet again “redouble our efforts” and defeat IS, it cannot be mere words — like the pointless Twitter hashtag campaigns after every atrocity.

This cult has to be defeated militarily in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Good progress is being made, certainly in the first two.

Cutting the head off the snake is vital.

That won’t be the end of it. Its poison is already widespread.

But it will at least defeat the source of the perverted ideology which teaches young Muslims that  traditional definitions of good and evil are wrong — and that even no-mark thugs and losers can die as noble martyrs by committing mass slaughter and suicide for Allah.

Conquering this scourge is inevitable but it will be a very long process.

Meanwhile we can only mourn yet more innocent lives lost,  and carry on, without surrendering to the fear these brain- washed monsters seek to spread.

No Brexit letup

THERESA May cannot let Scotland’s Remainers block Brexit’s path.

We are all for her prioritising the union and visiting Nicola Sturgeon yesterday on her first trip as Prime Minister.

And it is fair enough to consult the Scottish Government while forming our negotiating plan with the EU. But the SNP, and  1.6million Scots who backed Remain, cannot be an excuse for the Tories to water down or delay our exit.

Some 17.4million people throughout the UK voted for that. A million were Scots too.

The fort police

EVEN in this perilous world we didn’t think building sandcastles on a beach was risky.

“Digging holes in the sand can be seen as a relatively harmless exercise,” says Weston-super-Mare coastguard chief Jon Kendray.

Well, yes, Jon. Yes it can.

“But it can have very serious consequences,” he warns.

Have people been engulfed by sand at Weston-super-Mare? No. Yet now they must dig only the shallowest of holes, with adult supervision, then fill them in.

Let’s call a spade a spade.

We’ve had some daft health and safety scares before . . . this one’s the pits.