Boris must cure the perilous cabin fever that’s gripped Britain 

Those who stir up hatred and intolerance will find that it rebounds on them. If you have yourself chosen lawlessness, vandalism and destruction, you have licensed others to do the same.

The whole basis of free and civilised societies is that your opponents are not your enemies, and that we all agree on enough that we can join together in defending peace and order. Breach that most basic pact and you are playing with fire. Once disputes are settled with fists and boots and vandalism, rather than by debates and votes, there is no telling where it may end.

In London and elsewhere yesterday, self-styled patriots, claiming to defend British tradition, disgracefully assaulted police in a stupid and immoral breach of that tradition. One of these louts even shamefully desecrated the Parliament Square memorial to PC Keith Palmer, who died at the hands of a knife-wielding terrorist. These thugs were, of course, entirely to blame for their criminal acts and – as Home Secretary Priti Patel quite rightly stated – should face the full force of the law. We hope they do.

But the atmosphere in which they felt free to do so had been created by radical Leftist protesters who resorted to similar violence in London last week, and who then began their campaign of destructive attacks on monuments and statues of which they disapprove.

Wise societies marginalise and discourage political spite and hatred. The proper place for argument in this country, however bitter, is the House of Commons, not the streets. It is horribly easy to bring peace and order to an end. It is often very difficult to restore them once lost.

And it has been disturbing to see just how much of the Establishment has been feeble in the face of this general threat to order.

The leadership of the Labour Party has ‘taken the knee’, so giving a general impression of sympathy with the protesters. Even Downing Street has sounded an uncertain trumpet in face of the zealots who seek to pull down relics of the past. The BBC, now more or less totally in breach of its Charter and wholly unpunished for this, has minimised the violence of the Leftist troublemakers. At the same time it has joined in an unhinged surge of censorship of classic comedies, seeking to rewrite the past with ‘extra guidance’.

In an atmosphere of general witch-hunt, even Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling – no Tory – has found herself publicly and snootily abandoned by the influential young actors who rose to fame and fortune in the films of her books – because her thoughts on transgender issues are not sufficiently revolutionary.

No wonder the public look out from the homes, in which they have been dutifully cooped up for months, with a mixture of despair and depression. What on earth has happened to the country while they have been locked down? When will there be good news? When will the ordinary, sane, cheerful things of life, from easy contact with friends and family to holidays, daily routine and work, shopping, restaurants, pubs and cinemas, return?

The country is suffering from a sort of cabin fever, the outcome of long confinement and inactivity, of being cut off from friends, family and work colleagues. The Prime Minister must see that it urgently needs the hope of release, so that we can all recover our good sense and once again push the apostles of violence and destruction to the distant margins of society.