I want to be very clear about one thing here:

I am not terrified of Islamic extremism.

I’m not terrified of it, and I refuse to pretend I am out of politeness. Nor do I consider the attacks in Woolwich a threat to the British state, any more than I would consider some poor bastard ranting in a hospital wing about how he’s the King of England a pressing threat to the British monarchy. People do not generally overthrow their governments because a madman with a meat cleaver tells them to. Of course, I feel sorry for the family of Lee Rigby, who are having to watch graphic reconstructions of the bloody murder of their son, husband and father plastered all over every paper. However - perhaps this makes me naive, but it’s how I feel - I am still not terrified of militant Islam. On a day to day basis, it’s something I worry about far less than I worry about being mugged or stabbed, living as I do in one of London’s knife-crime hotspots.

What does terrify me - what frightens and appalls me - is the way this country is sliding into prejudice and violence, the way that ordinary people are turning on each other whilst the state quietly blows on the coals of race hate. I am terrified of what I see Britain becoming.

I am terrified of the propaganda and the lies and the sheer momentum of the ideological shift to the right.