Remember when everyone was constantly banging on about “online radicalisation”? In those days, it usually meant confused and resentful young Muslim boys who fell prey to “preachers of hate” on YouTube and would, if not referred sharpish to Prevent, start thinking it was a good idea to blow the hated kufir up while he went about his morning commute. Occasionally, it would refer to confused and resentful young men of all stripes who’d fall prey to the more radical sort of manosphere influencer and start fantasising about spree-killing as an alternative to getting a girlfriend.

Rees set off an actual bomb, at considerable risk to life…to disable a traffic camera

Rees set off an actual bomb, at considerable risk to life…to disable a traffic camera

We may have stopped talking about it so much, but online radicalisation never went away – and it has now acquired a yet more tragic and silly form. Take, for instance, the case of 63-year-old Kevin Rees, of Sidcup, in southeast London. The retired electrical engineer was jailed on Friday for 15 years for attaching an explosive to an Ulez camera near his home and blowing it up.

It turned out that he was active in a number of anti-Ulez Facebook groups, and he told the court in his defence that he was “strongly opposed” to the Ulez scheme. No shizzle! Some may think 15 years a bit harsh – the judge in sentencing chose to regard this as an offence with a “terrorism........

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