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In a high-profile speech at the 47th Munich Security Conference in February 2011, David Cameron indicted "the doctrine of state multiculturalism," advocating instead a policy of "muscular liberalism." The Munich Security Conference is an annual event at which heads of state, military and security experts, diplomats, and senior politicians from over seventy countries gather to discuss international policy on security. On the face of it, this is an unlikely venue for a UK prime minister to set out his stall on cultural diversity at home. But there is a thread running through his speech that ties together security policy and social policy. This article outlines the speech, analysing and discussing its logic and rhetoric. It seeks to unpack the subtext regarding Islam and Muslims in Britain today and to characterize Cameron's "voice." Ultimately, the article argues that the speech evinces an almost unbearable sense of insecurity in a changing world, a world that is spinning out of control of the West, leaving the West unsure of itself and Britain unsure of its place.

In the immediate aftermath of the murderous attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, millions of people rallied round the slogan 'Je suis Charlie'. The slogan conveyed a simple message: either you are in favour of free speech and the right to offend or you are against. This essay offers a critique of the slogan and its message. The first part raises and discusses the problem of framing: what, fundamentally, was the Paris attack about? The middle section discusses a blog that I posted at the time, also written in the heat of the moment. This segues into the third and final part, which examines the language of rights, freedom of expression and the meaning of the word 'offend'. The conclusion drawn is that the slogan 'Je suis Charlie' is an obstacle to thinking through the issues raised by the Paris attack.

This essay falls into three parts. The first part gives a brief characterization of the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict and makes some general remarks about peace and higher roads. The middle section argues for a version of Judaism in which being Jewish calls for doing justice. There is, however, a different take on Jewish identity today, one that privileges loyalty and allegiance to Israel, thought of as "the Jewish state," over the pursuit of justice. This has led to a "battle for Judaism" among Jews, a battle being fought primarily over the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict. This battle—in its own way as fierce and as fateful as the conflict itself—is the subject of the third and final part of the essay.1