RISHI SUNAK takes the gold for brazen hypocrisy. He joined the chorus of denouncing “violent, criminal behaviour” at the weekend. He failed to mention that racist mobs attacking mosques and asylum accommodation were raising his own slogan: “Stop the boats.”

Keir Starmer spent last week spouting similar sanitising language and likening far-right mobs to “football hooligans.” The proper comparisons are with lynch mobs, pogroms and fascist squads.

He was forced to shift a little on Sunday, at least mentioning the far right and racism. But with mosques attacked and asylum-seekers taken to be Muslim, he refused to utter the word Islamophobia. The reality is that years of anti-Muslim racism have brought onto the streets something that has an accurate name: fascism.