One of the most curious things following Hamas’s massacre of the Jews on 7 October was the silence of Britain’s fascism-spotters. You know these people. They see fascism everywhere. Everything from a fiery speech by a Tory politician to millions of ‘gammon’ going out to vote for Brexit reminds them of the 1930s. The minute someone says something they don’t like or votes for a thing they disapprove of, they’re logging onto Twitter to wail: ‘Is this Nazism?!’

It’s striking that someone so interested in contemporary events that echo the evils of the 30s has had so little to say about the worst anti-Jewish pogrom in 75 years?

And yet when Hamas carried out the worst assault on Jews since the Holocaust, the fascism-spotters were nowhere to be seen. In the wake of that unconscionable act that really did echo the 1930s, the virtue-signallers just stopped signalling. You and me saying ‘We hate the EU’ gets them weeping about the rebirth of the 30s, but the sight of a marauding gang of anti-Semites slaughtering Jewish men, women and children seemingly does not.

I’m afraid to say that Gary Lineker is a classic example of the centrist dad who wrings his manicured hands over ‘fascism’ yet falls strangely silent when actual fascism occurs. Lineker caused a stink earlier this year when he accused Suella Braverman of using ‘language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s’. Braverman’s linguistic crime was to say ‘we must stop the boats’. Given his keen interest in things that are ‘not dissimilar’ to 1930s Germany, Mr Lineker must have been all over the horrific anti-Jewish pogrom of 7 October, right? Oddly, no.

On the day of the atrocity itself, there wasn’t so much as a whisper about it, or about the 1930s, on his Twitter page. He did, however, find time to congratulate Spurs for getting to the top of the league and pat William Dalrymple on the back for his ‘great podcast’. How about the following day, when the dust was settling on the most violent anti-Jewish event since the death camps? Again, not a peep from our esteemed worrier about the 1930s. Instead he spent the day retweeting praise for his podcast The Rest Is Football.

Finally, on 9 October, he said something. A thundering denunciation of this terrible assault that was ‘not dissimilar’ to the violence of the thirties? A stinging critique of Hamas for its ‘immeasurably cruel’ behaviour (the words Lineker used to describe Braverman’s anti-boats policy)? Nah, he  retweeted a link to a new episode of The Rest is Politics podcast about the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Rest is Politics, of course, is produced by Lineker’s pod empire, Goalhanger Productions.

Now, I’m not one of those people who thinks that just because someone tweets about things that he has to tweet about everything. In fact, I would prefer that Lineker only tweeted about football. And that everyone at the BBC whose wages are paid by us would stop spouting their milquetoast meanderings on world events. And yet it is striking, is it not, that someone who is so interested in contemporary events that echo the evils of the 30s has had so little to say about the worst anti-Jewish pogrom in 75 years?

Lineker would perhaps argue that he is unable to comment on the October 7 attacks after the BBC updated its social media guidelines for presenters earlier this year. But his latest intervention into the Israel-Hamas issue raises more questions about his selective moralism. He has locked horns with Braverman again, this time over her criticisms of the ‘pro-Palestine’ marches taking place every weekend. She says they’re ‘hate marches’, he says they’re not. ‘Marching and calling for a ceasefire and peace so that more innocent children don’t get killed is not really the definition of a hate march’, he tweeted. But that isn’t all that’s happening on these marches, is it Mr Lineker? You must know that.

We’ve seen mobs of men cry for ‘jihad’ (i.e. holy war) against the State of Israel. People have been arrested for chanting ‘God’s curse be upon the Jews’ and for glorifying the paragliding terrorists who descended upon southern Israel to murder Jews. We’ve seen people celebrating historic anti-Jewish massacres. We’ve seen Zionism being denounced as the ‘New Nazism’ – Jew-baiting dressed up as political critique. Some British Jews have said they avoid central London when these marches are taking place. Who should we trust on whether or not a public gathering feels hateful – our Jewish citizens or a former footballer? What a stickler.

Open cries for more violence against the Jewish state. Jewish schools temporarily shutting down to protect pupils’ safety. A Holocaust museum desecrated with graffiti saying ‘Free Gaza’. A massive hike in anti-Semitic attacks. Is any of this reminding you of the 1930s, Gary? Explain to us, please, why Suella Braverman’s immigration-control policies made you think of Nazi Germany but the horrendous fallout from Hamas’s act of evil seemingly does not. This goes for all those centrists and leftists who’ve spent the entire Brexit and Trump era fretting over fascism’s return: why so quiet now?

I believe we are witnessing the twilight of the virtue-signallers. The pompous ‘anti-fascist’ posturing of the middle-class left, of both rich centrists and overeducated radicals, now stands starkly exposed. These people love the moral pantomime of damning their political foes as ‘fascists’, but they run away from the generational moral challenge posed to us all by the barbarism unleashed on the Jewish people on 7 October. Their self-satisfied preening is worse than useless in the face of a growing global hatred that really is ‘not dissimilar’ to the 1930s.