The whole thing was absurdly hilarious. At one point, someone suggested it could have been a stag party gone wrong, and that a farmer on his way home foiled the plot, which neatly sums it up. The government called for people not to speculate. Andy Burnham then said, before any trial, that strong indications suggested Iran had played a part. The men arrested at RAF Fairford, treated by the president of the United States as the work of a foreign actor and by our own government as likely Iranian terrorists, have all been let out on bail.

The recruit has now proved himself reliable and handed over compromising material that can never be taken back

The recruit has now proved himself reliable and handed over compromising material that can never be taken back

So what happened at RAF Fairford? One possibility is that the Iranians, or the Russians, or someone else who has it in for us, are recruiting through online game chat rooms. Pay to slay. Pay-as-you-go terrorism. From our opponents’ point of view, the problem is that you might not get the best and the brightest. Some real comic-gold moments in the Fairford story point to an Ealing comedy, not an episode of 24. But the comedy hides a deeper, ongoing vulnerability, and a problem that has only been escalating.

The recent spate of arrests in connection with arson attacks across London, announced by counter-terrorist police, confirmed what many in Britain’s beleaguered Jewish community had known and feared for weeks. An insidious new form of anti-Semitic violence has arrived on British streets. This time it is not the work of lone fanatics or the supposedly spontaneous pro-Palestine protests that have repeatedly spiralled out of control. No, this could be something colder, more calculated, and, I fear, far harder to stop.

Detectives investigating a wave of arson attacks on Jewish targets across London have made a string of arrests since late March, some in connection with the firebombing of Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March, others in connection with attacks on synagogues in Finchley and Harrow, a Persian-Iranian dissident media outlet, and another Jewish charity. A group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyah (HAYI) has claimed responsibility for the campaign in videos that also show drones flying near and over the Israeli embassy in Kensington. Police are investigating possible links between the group and Iran.

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