Tolerance of the aggressively intolerant must have its limits. Fanatics who threaten those who disagree with them with massacres and beheadings have crossed that line. Yet the British police have failed to act against demonstrators who did just that last weekend. Contemporary Britain swallows camels and strains at gnats: it criminalises the expression of prejudice, but balks at prosecuting incitement.

We are confused, but can afford to be no longer. We must ask ourselves the big questions again: what are the proper limits of free expression? What should be the role of the law in setting the limits on free speech? How should people live alongside those whose beliefs they may abhor?