Could it happen here? I suppose that’s the underlying thought many of us have had as we watch France burn. And the immediate response is, why wouldn’t it? I am old enough to remember in the early 2000s when people used to say France was a model of integration. Then in 2005 the suburbs went up in flames, followed by parts of the centre of Paris and other major cities. The Citroën flambé became a national dish and suddenly talk of ‘the French model of integration’ disappeared. That same year, eight home-grown terrorists of foreign origin attempted to blow up the London transport network, four succeeded and a little bit of that blasé British attitude that we know better than the French disappeared too. In 2011 our own cities started burning, but we learned nothing from that.

However, I would like to linger on that early 2000s period for a moment because of something in a faraway country which happened during that time. In 2004, the British-born Ken Bigley was abducted, held in captivity and decapitated on camera by Islamist extremists in Iraq. While he was in custody, citizens of his native Liverpool held candlelit vigils. But al Qaeda weren’t listening and cut poor Bigley’s head off anyway.

Britain has consistently refused to do the obvious thing: deport and close the borders

Britain has consistently refused to do the obvious thing: deport and close the borders

Back then, if you’d said that two decades later a member of the same cell that murdered him, who then joined another cell which performed mass executions, would........

© The Spectator