I dipped a hesitant toe into that boiling cauldron of hatred and stupidity that is Twitter/X yesterday. I wish I hadn't. There are three things I want to say about it.

First, most of the reactions to the Rape Gang Inquiry report are as we would expect. The anger about this demonic chapter in British life, still unresolved, is justified.

Second, there are some elements at the margins of the right that are becoming increasingly fanatical and insane. I saw dozens of posts insisting "the Jews" are somehow behind Pakistani grooming gangs, along with vicious, orchestrated pile-ons against people who had nothing to do with any of it.

Third, the governing class hasn't even begun to understand the monster they're creating, with their refusal to deal with these and related issues and their endless smearing of decent people as bigots. They and the cultural and progressive establishment have spent decades making the term "far-right" meaningless. Now that something actually ugly is stirring, they have no word left for it.

The rape gangs scandal is the darkest chapter in modern British history, no question. Far too many people, including those who enabled these crimes through cowardice or neglect, have not been properly held to account. The failure to do so is creating a great deal of anger, much of it justified, some of it giving rise to actual extremist elements we should be worried about.