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A favourite tactic of race-baiters and bigots is to stoke an emotional response to crimes committed by the target group. Trump's infamous slur of Mexican immigrants as "rapists and murderers" is a notable recent example. In Australia we see attempts from the far-right to present Bilal Skaf as representative of many Muslim men. Peter stoops to this too and claims that in Britain mass-criminality is being led by Muslim clerics and fanatics, that the religion is a growing cancer there and presents a "civilisational challenge".

I can see the appeal of this over-heated stuff, the idea of fighting for 'our civilisation' against a dark heathen threat is likely to get the blood racing, give one a feeling of great purpose. It's almost spiritual, a great noble idea, a way of escaping the pressing banality of everyday life.

But we should not mistake our psychological needs for reality. If we do, if we get into the romance of 'existential threat' then we are likely to abandon sensible, ordinary decision-making and the kinds of responses that deal with problems in a measured and practical way in favour of the dramatic, sweeping responses that supposedly slash and destroy the terrible threat. That's the path of deepening divisions that destroys lives and deeply damages civil society.