The first time the window-rattling roar of a B-1 bomber woke me up this summer, I thought for one crazed second we were under attack. By the second time, I’d learned to recognise the sound of US planes taking off from their base at RAF Fairford for what it was: a reminder that although Britain wants no part in this war with Iran, we cannot quite escape the consequences.

We’ll feel them at the petrol pump, or in the supermarket this autumn, or in this winter’s heating bills. But living under the flight path adds an extra edge to it. The skies finally fell silent last week, but only because the bombers have been hastily summoned home after an alleged terrorist plot to attack Fairford, in which (according to the prime minister) there are “strong indications that Iran played a part”. If Fairford is now a target of war, did that threat disappear when the Americans did? Nobody knows.

Rural Oxfordshire is peppered with military bases, and after 15 years here I don’t bat an eyelid at helicopters practising low-flying drills, uniforms on the school run, or the stash of Day-Glo marshmallow cereal our local supermarket used to keep for homesick Americans. But the Fairford incident follows a serious security breach at RAF Brize Norton last year – and though this involved pro-Palestinian protesters rather than the Russians, it didn’t inspire confidence – and news this summer that the Manchester synagogue attacker had scoped out the security arrangements for the nearby Shrivenham defence academy. Bases nationwide are on high alert, with two Latvians arrested on Thursday on suspicion of trespass inside RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire, home to a Nato intelligence hub. At Fairford, it was a farmer who sounded the alarm, raising some difficult questions about how vigilant to be in small rural communities where strangers tend to stand out. I don’t want to become paranoid about every........

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