Evening Standard comment: Kenya and a new Islamist terror threat

At least four Britons are among the dead in the carnage at a Nairobi shopping centre carried out, it seems, by al-Shabaab, the Somali Islamist group. We do not yet know whether there are Britons among the killers, as tweets allegedly from al-Shabaab suggest, nor whether the so-called White Widow, a Briton, was involved. What is dispiriting is that neither would be wholly surprising. Although the Prime Minister has said the killers are not motivated by Islam, we do know from Syria and elsewhere that a small minority of British Muslims have fallen prey to Islamist extremism, while Somalia remains a failed-state stronghold of jihadism in east Africa.

British police forces are said to be involved with the operation to regain control of the Westgate shopping mall in which so many innocent people have been murdered. It is right that we should do anything in our power to help the Kenyan authorities. It seems clear that this attack was carried out in revenge for its engagement in the African Union peace operations in Somalia. Whatever chance Somalia has of returning to some kind of viable statehood depends on the success of this initiative. Kenya has paid a heavy price — in human lives as well as tourism — for its role in its neighbour’s troubles. It deserves the support of the international community.

This barbarous sectarian attack by an al Qaeda affiliate also has worrying implications for London. It underlines, as did the Mumbai attack of 2008, how soft a target is offered by our shopping malls and other areas where big numbers congregate. We must hope that the Metropolitan Police and security services are already prepared to anticipate any attack here through enhanced intelligence and security plans. If not, they had better start preparing for that — we hope, remote — contingency now.

Today is Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls’s day at the Labour conference: he has said that the party’s economic policies could be costed by the Office for Budget Responsibility in an effort to ensure that they are credible. That would require a widening of the OBR’s remit by Parliament. The attraction for Mr Balls is that such scrutiny might help him fend off Conservative criticisms of plans like the one he unveils today to introduce further free childcare for all three- and four-year-olds. This is in addition to a commitment to make all primary schools provide “wraparound” childcare from 8am to 6pm. It is an attractive offer, though it could increase the workload of primary school staff.

The extra hours of childcare would be funded by an increase in the banking levy, to raise an extra £800 million. The levy is already resented by the City; if it looks like an easy option for governments wanting to raise funds, it will hardly help the capital’s attractiveness to investors. But this is not the only question over Labour’s economic policy: Mr Balls refuses to be drawn on whether he would fund capital investment through increased borrowing, or on his position on further quantitative easing. This conference is meant to bolster the party’s economic credibility: that will still require a continued focus over the coming months.

Angela Merkel’s triumph in the German elections was predicted, but not its scale. British politicians will be pondering the implications of this victory for the Right, and the annihilation of the centre party, for our own politics. But for now Mrs Merkel has swept all before her.