There is much to like in the Fulford report on the Southport affair. It is spot-on in damning the pressure on teachers and police to treat an aggressive knife-toting schoolboy as a black victim in need of help rather than a public menace calling for firm action. And Sir Adrian had the courage not to mince his words about Axel Rudakubana’s parents. If attentive child-rearing is the best antidote to juvenile devilment, their supine condonation of his ghoulish bedroom activities gave about the worst example possible.

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Go beyond this, however, and doubts start to creep in. The call for yet more forcible disarmament, such as clampdowns on pointed kitchen knives, crossbows and even archery bows, is predictable, but one suspects apt more to alienate the law-abiding rather than appreciably increase general safety. A curious demand that taxi-drivers be forced to act as general narks, under a duty to report ‘any significant criminal activity’ on pain of losing their licence, looks like locking up behind a long-bolted horse; and in any case why (apart from the fact that it happened to be a cab-driver who failed........

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