There are many ways to do nothing. One is to sit on your hands; another is to call for ‘a conversation’.

I have noticed quite a lot of calls for ‘a conversation’ since the stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green last week. Some politicians and pundits have even been bold enough to call for a ‘national conversation’. This is when you can tell people are pulling out the big guns.

One reason I say it is also a variant on doing nothing is because this has happened so many times before. I remember Theresa May standing near the site of the London Bridge attacks in 2017, surrounded by various leaders, insisting that we need to tackle ‘extremism’. The results were a real stunner – even for connoisseurs of inertia.

Our ancestors went through far worse economic times and I do not remember them stabbing Jews

Our ancestors went through far worse economic times and I do not remember them stabbing Jews

May’s response to three Islamists running over pedestrians on London Bridge before slashing at the throats of pregnant women while crying ‘Allahu Akbar’ was to commission a report into ‘extremism’. The taskforce in question was eventually put together. There was infinite politicking about who it should consist of and who it should consult. It spent its first year trying to work out what ‘extremism’ as a word might mean. Then after more years and more expense, its report and work was delivered and shelved.

It was put alongside all the many other ‘reviews’ and ‘reports’ that consecutive British governments have........

© The Spectator