Have the Tories finally woken up to the extremism problem?

Michael Gove has a reliable track record for sounding the alarm on ideological hatred, so are his latest proposals on redefining extremism a cure for what ails us? The communities secretary has unveiled a plan to broaden the definition of extremism. The new official meaning aims to ban those with a ‘violent or intolerant’ ideology from government links and funds.

Gove named several organisations that could fall foul of the new definition: the Muslim Association of Britain, Mend and Cage were groups, he told the Commons, that could be held to account. Predictably enough, critics have taken to the air to condemn this crackdown, seeing it variously as unnecessary, unwieldy or a downright descent into authoritarian bigotry. So who is right?

The proposals seem (mostly) sensible. Over the last decade, Gove has been in charge of ministries that have all been mired in accusations of timidity, or have simply been absent from the field in the battle to uphold liberal democratic ideals.