Ever since the atrocities in Israel more than two weeks ago, I have had one main thought. Yes, Israel has its problems. But we also have ours. Subsequent weeks have borne that instinct out. For years I have noticed that in all the wars and exchanges involving Israel – no matter the actual size or scale of the conflict – the reaction at home grows worse each time, not least in our institutions.

Last weekend there were massive demonstrations against Israel in London, as in cities across the West. And I say ‘against Israel’ with care. These protests have not been dedicated to finding a compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Few acknowledged Hamas’s massacre. Still the crowds just turn up, as they are expected to again this Saturday.

The odd deluded fellow-traveller can be relied upon to turn up too. Among them last Saturday was the current frontrunner for ‘fast learner of the year’: someone briefly hoisted a Pride banner in the sea of Palestinian and Hamas flags, only to have it torn from their hands and smashed to the ground. But that’s because, as they/them may have noticed, not all love is reciprocated.

Still, even for someone who has expected the worst for years, last Saturday was sobering. In Belgravia a rally organised by the extremists of Hizb ut-Tahrir called for ‘Muslim armies’ to ‘liberate Palestine’. Other protestors in London called for an Islamic state, for ‘Allah’s curses’ on the ‘infidels’ and ‘the Jews’ – and for ‘jihad’.

Thank goodness we have a police force. Or do we? For their part, the Metropolitan Police spent the day in a variety of ways. These included threatening to arrest a couple of lads who appeared with the English flag. The police warned them that if they said anything even ‘borderline racist’ they would be arrested. At the same time, Met officers stood idly by as the streets rang with calls for jihad.

At least their colleagues in the rapid linguistics response unit were hard at work. The Met’s Twitter account announced: ‘The word jihad has a number of meanings. We have specialist counterterrorism officers here in the operations room who have particular knowledge in this area.’ Likewise, a former detective superintendent at the Met, Shabnam Chaudhri, explained to the media that ‘jihad means a lot of different things to many different people’. Which may be so, but when an angry bearded maniac shrieks about jihad on London’s streets you can generally take it as read that he’s not threatening to have an intense inner theological struggle.

Elsewhere at the demonstration, a young man climbed up some scaffolding and set off flares. The Met’s numpties stood at the bottom, patiently waiting for him to come down, only to then hand him his flag back and send him merrily on his way. Not an English flag of course – because that would be provocative – but a Palestinian one. This is Britain in 2023.

I cannot help but compare this with the treatment of certain other protests in our country in recent years. For instance, some readers may recall the murder of Sarah Everard by a member of the Metropolitan Police. Since a number of women across the country – including the now Princess of Wales – felt the murder of Ms Everard especially keenly, there were flower-layings in her memory, and a vigil on Clapham Common. But the vigil took place in a time of Covid lockdown and so the Met went in like the cavalry, arresting several of them. To give them their due, the Met proved to be a crack squad when it came to breaking up candlelit vigils of quiet women.

Earlier this year police in Birmingham moved in when they found Isabel Vaughan-Spruce in the neighbourhood of an abortion clinic in Kings Norton. Vaughan-Spruce may be a Christian campaigner, but she isn’t exactly the Westboro Baptist Church. She wasn’t standing outside abortion clinics telling everyone that all aborted babies are fags or the like. All she was doing was silently praying within a certain distance of an abortion clinic. Not even mouthing it – she was praying in her head. But officers from West Midlands police told her that ‘engaging in prayer’ was an ‘offence’. Looking back at it, Vaughan-Spruce should have evaded arrest by shouting ‘Jihad! Slay the Infidel’ and so on. Had she done so, the police would have doubtless stepped back, apologised and bade her a pleasant rest of the day.

I wish the police were the only force in this country to have such a problem. But unfortunately the rot appears to be everywhere. Last weekend a Tube driver in central London was videoed leading passengers in pro-Palestinian chants, and saying over the Tannoy system how much he would have liked to have joined the passengers at the march. Lots of people whooped with joy on the train. I’m glad I wasn’t a Jew in the carriage that day.

A certain amount of stink was made online after the video emerged. Transport for London (TfL) responded that they had no way of identifying the driver. How could it possibly know who its employees are and when they clock on, after all? That was until the Sun and other media outlets made such a fuss that TfL discovered they do actually keep records of their employees, and had suddenly found and planned to investigate the driver in question.

Once again, it is worth keeping in mind some of the things that TfL forbids on its trains. These include (though are not limited to) the advertising of junk food or gambling and any posters which advertise being ‘beach body ready’. Staring at other passengers is banned. You are also, of course, not allowed to drink alcohol on the Tube. Which would suit some of the travellers to Saturday’s protests very well. After all we can’t have antisocial behaviour in modern, diverse Britain, can we?