Northern Ireland demonstrates what happens when identity becomes the primary organising principle of politics. Compromise becomes betrayal, opponents become enemies, and institutions are forced to manage division rather than bridge it.
He does not write well, but there is a large public for his message.
West Midlands Police decided first, searched for evidence later – and left Parliament to now unravel its shifting story. In banning Israeli fans, the force consulted some communities loudly, erasing others entirely.
“We have got to stamp out all forms of prejudice, antisemitism, Islamophobia, wherever we find them,” he says.
That pride, that sense of belonging, is what we should be encouraging in every town, every city, and every community.
Numerous people on the doorstep told me that the only prime minister they’d go on national service for was Margaret Thatcher. That is how we win elections, by being unafraid of being patriotic.
It is easy for Labour to dismiss the election of the ‘Gaza Independents’ as a protest vote, not least because in part it was, and to believe that when the war ends so too will the protest. But that is to misunderstand how we got here.
If councillors were to bend to pressure from campaigners on behalf of the casualties of all ongoing armed conflict on the planet, to debate what demands to make of the combatants, they would have insufficient time left at council meetings to conduct actual council business.
The MP for Ashfield is sometimes in error, but neither he nor his supporters should be cast into outer darkness.
How long until Starmer is demanding an immediate ceasefire? How long until another Labour MP or candidate is suspended for saying something appalling? And what will this mean for the party overwhelmingly likely to form the next government?
Voters in the town are not just worried about Gaza: they also feel no one in authority has taken responsibility for the grooming scandals.
The confidence to walk the streets safely, the right to interface directly with our elected representatives, the ability to speak our minds freely – these fruits of peaceable British toleration are being eroded by an extremist tendency that has grown unchecked for far too long.
I believe it shows that over the last 18 years, the Forum has helped to build much better links between the Muslim and Jewish communities of Greater Manchester.
As the King knows, Christians are better placed than rationalists to integrate Muslims into British society.