No one who has been following the news cannot be completely stunned by the events in Paris last Friday. It is breath taking that such a small group of terrorists can wreak such devastating havoc on a city in such a short period of time. The news unfolds on a daily basis as more suspects are arrested and gun battles take place between the security services and suspects – people suspected, it seems, quite rightly as one blew herself up whilst involved in a gun battle.

The rise of IS has been rapid and efficient. They now see themselves at war with the west and attack those who have attacked them. We know there are many plots against our way of life and we must all be vigilant.

Many people will remember the troubles in the 70s and 80s with our own home grown terrorsists – the IRA. But the difference between then and now is that the IRA had relative decency about them. They telephoned warnings and of course those who planted bombs wanted to get away alive.

Now, IS will not only commit huge acts of terrorism; they also have no concern for personal safety as their own death is a part of the process of martyrdom. This alone makes it far harder to tackle the problem. Because the reality of the situation is that as long as there are fundamentalised young believers, they will have a ready stream of potential martyrs ready to attack our way of life.

This means that we are at great risk. It also means that our security services have to get lucky the whole time. They have to win the intelligence war continually, IS just has to get lucky once to kill hundreds of innocent civilians.

We are trying make sure we win this battle. The so called snoopers’ charter is one such bill passing through parliament that tackles modern terrorism and equalises, to some extent, our security services’ toolkit against terrorists. But should we do more? Should we get involved in a war in Syria to tackle IS head on? Indeed, we know that IS has come from nothing in just a few short years. If we destroy IS, will not a replacement, and more intolerant (if that is possible) group replace it? I don’t know, but I do know that my priority is doing everything we can to keep my constituents – you – safe.