The post-attack police press conference is one of the grimmest necessary rituals of British public life. A few dozen journalists, gathered around a cluster of microphones inside a regional police station, or outside a crime scene, waiting for a chief constable or superintendent to provide the details about murder and obscenity.

In recent months, that ritual has become grimmer. Police have felt the need to release details which previously they would not have done, principally around the ethnic and nationality status of suspects.

We saw this play out after the incident in May when a motorist drove into the crowd at Liverpool FC’s Premier League victory parade, where Merseyside Police, in a highly unorthodox move, confirmed within hours that the driver at the wheel was white. Likewise, on Sunday morning, in the wake of the appalling Huntingdon train knife attacks, British Transport Police Superintendent Alan Loveless made a point to emphasise that the suspects were British nationals and British born. Initially, two people were arrested but on Monday, one man was charged with 10 counts of attempted murder.

This development in modern policing is a sad reflection of the times determined by one fact: that X, which remains one of Britain’s most influential online news........

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