The Met Police's 'jihad' lecture shows it has lost the plot

I knew the police had lost the plot, but even I didn’t expect them to start issuing chin-stroking theological justifications for jihad. It happened on Saturday during the ‘March for Palestine’ in London. Protestors chanted for ‘Muslim armies’ to commence ‘jihad’ against Israel. To most ears, it will have sounded menacing, threatening even. To the ears of London’s Jews it must have sounded terrifying: just two weeks after a self-styled ‘Muslim army’ invaded Israel and visited the most unspeakable ‘jihad’ upon the Jews there, including British Jews, here were people on the streets of London calling for more ‘Muslim armies’ and more ‘jihad’.

The jihad dreamers were from Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist outfit so extreme it is banned in Germany, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. An organisation whose members described Hamas’s vile onslaught on the civilians of Israel as ‘good news’ and ‘egg on the face’ of the Jewish State. Hearing people like that chant ‘Jihad, jihad, jihad!’, as they did on Saturday, will have rattled and unnerved all decent folk.