Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn deserves some credit for resisting the most common response to the terrorist attacks in Paris.
After all, it was perfectly natural, if not entirely rational, as news reports of the slaughter filtered through on Friday night, to channel one’s anger and horror into demands for retribution. At midnight on Friday, “Bomb them back into the stone age!” felt almost like a Carringtonesque foreign policy.
But not Corbynesque. His official statement, as you would expect of the Leader of the Opposition, expressed sympathy and sorrow. If he was seething with fury at the jihadist fascists who carried out these dreadful attacks, if he was biting his tongue to prevent himself demanding a full-scale military effort to wipe ISIS off the map, then he managed to hide it well.