Tory peer admits he has no idea what Snapchat is... but Isis definitely does

Former Conservative defence secretary Thomas Jeremy King, Baron King of Bridgwater, age 81, made a surprise admission in the House of Lords on Tuesday morning: He doesn't understand WhatsApp or Snapchat.

He is certain of one thing, however, and that is that the terrorists of Isis (also known as IS, Islamic State or Isil) do know all about them.

In fact, they know them so well that he puts their entire success - of conquering vast swathes of Syria and Iraq - down to their propensity for social media...

I am not a tweeter, but we've got Facebook, we've got Twitter and somebody tried to explain to me what WhatsApp is, somebody else tried to explain to me Snapchat. My lords, I don't know about them, but what is absolutely clear is that the terrorists and jihadists do. And the understanding is that actually Isil and part of their amazing advance across Syria and into Iraq was that their communications were so good and the way they kept together was entirely due to one or other of the last two systems that I mentioned, which they handled with great intelligence.

• Lord Hill