Our protective services have a fine line to tread. Axel Muganwa Rudakubana has now been charged with murder and attempted murder for the attack that killed three children in Southport. This followed days of speculation and active disinformation about the alleged perpetrator’s background and ethnicity, including the lie that he was a recently arrived asylum seeker.

We live in an age where attacks on the vulnerable by lone actors risk becoming a footnote in the discourse, rather than the headline. The police have a part to play there. Misinformation will be relied on when people are fed up with confusing messages from the official channels.

Will the distrust this has created have an impact on the character and policing of multiple planned protests this weekend?

Merseyside police were very keen to rule out the Southport attack as ‘terrorism-related’. This was despite subsequent remarks from the Home Office that counter-terrorism police were still assisting the investigation. That muddled explanation will fall on deaf ears. Whether this turns out to be an act encompassed within........

© The Spectator