The military cooperation agreements announced last month with Algeria and Libya are part of UK 'energy diplomacy' aimed at securing access to strategic resources in North Africa. Both countries are identified in the UK Energy Security Strategy as producers of gas and oil which are important trading partners and hence countries which are important to the UK's energy security.

Every strike by a Western power that kills innocent civilians serves to turn even middle class Arabs, who might otherwise be sympathetic towards Western values, into closet Islamists.

On Thursday evening, the topic for discussion at the Cambridge Union Society was the justification for humanitarian military intervention. Edward Delman and Mark Nelson, both postgraduate students and Cambridge University, argue in proposition and in opposition of the motion respectively.