A working society is like a large window. You can’t see that window doing its job as it does so in a transparent, window-like way.

Then a passing thug lobs a brick. The window smashes and the shit-stirrers who encouraged the yob say, ‘Oh, look at the jagged edges on that window. That window isn’t safe. We told everyone this would happen, and no-one listened.’

The outrageous disturbances we have seen in the past week seem to have been agitated from a safe distance by those who churn out hate on their laptops or release dangerously disingenuous video statements.

I went looking for a quote about this and found one from the writer and lecturer Tom Scott:

“What Richard Tice, Nigel Farage & Reform are doing is straight out of the Fascism by Numbers playbook: 1) Stoke fear & hatred of a minority group 2) Feign outrage at ensuing chaos & violence 3) Blame government for this 4) Pose as the party that will “restore law & order”.

This is quite true. Reform and their far-right buddies know only negativity and disruption; their barely hidden desire is to cause chaos and then cash in their chaos chips.

Let’s admit to the wider problem here. That good quote from Scott came from X/Twitter, a place turned by Elon Musk into a right-wing echo chamber too often filled with nastiness.

As an example of this, Musk gave Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the far-right agitator who pretends to be called Tommy Robinson, his platform back.

And X/Twitter was one of the ways Yaxley-Lennon stirred up his supporters to go on thuggish rampage. He didn’t so much predict a riot as apparently help to cause it, all from the sweaty safety of his holiday sun lounger.

So why stay on X/Twitter? Only because of those who answer back with clarity and passion, such as Tom Scott and the LBC broadcaster James O’Brien, and many other enlightened souls.

But let’s go back to that broken window.

Those disturbances across the country happened after three girls under the age of 10 were killed at a dance workshop in Southport. They died in an horrific knife attack that left eight more children and two adults seriously injured.

A time for shock and appalled reflection; a time to leave loved ones to grieve and cry over their unimaginable loss, or so a normal person might suppose.

Not so the far-right racists. They seemingly saw this tragedy as an opportunity. What sort of a cruel twister do you have to be to rub your hands and say, oh, this works well for us; to set about spreading false rumours about the identity of the attacker – to even invent a Muslim-sounding name, complete with dark hints that he’d just arrived in a small boat.

Nigel Farage, as ever, was mealy-mouthing his way round the fringes, releasing a video about the killings in which he questioned whether the truth about the attacker was “being withheld from us” by the police.

A disgraceful act from a serving MP, as that is what he now is, but typical of his gruesome nudge-nudge political circus act.

Southport, a strong community town, should have been left to mourn its unimaginable loss. Instead far-right racist thugs travelled there for the day to riot and wreck the place, doing much damage and attacking the mosque.

All of this orchestrated anger has, absurdly, been blamed by some on Sir Keir Starmer, prime minister for four weeks. Glance over your shoulder instead at 14 years of Conservative rule; all that time spent going on endlessly about migration and small boats, while only making the situation worse.

Look, too, at how the Tories targeted ‘outsiders’ and exercised their obsession with Islamic extremists yet refused to heed warnings about far-right extremism.

Starmer has been careful with his words, but that hasn’t stopped a background chant that he is against white working people.

Such crackpot ideas run alongside conspiracy theories that far-right ‘protesters’ (sorry, racist thugs) are treated more harshly because they are white and right-wing.

This is the “two-tier policing” urban myth, another bit of truth twisting that ignores inconvenient evidence, such as the harsh treatment of environmental protesters.

In this Trumpian, Musk-moulded world of social media, and across the alternative news networks, the truth is any sharp shape you want it to be. Older forms of media have long whistled that tune, too. The Daily Mail might now attack Musk for being ‘wildly irresponsible’ but just look at all those front pages here.

Wishing to end with something positive, let’s turn away from the window smashers, the shouters and the racist idiots, and instead praise those of all faith and background who swept the streets clear of the broken glass, rebuilt the fallen walls, mended the mosques. Chief among them was Mike Ainscough, 82, from Southport, who removed the cuddly toys, messages and flowers from outside his home every night, putting them back  in the morning.

‘I felt it was something I could so,’ as he told Lizzie Dearden of the Observer.

Another day breaks, more riotous assembly is predicted, shop windows are boarded up, but instead anti-fascist protesters come out in force, seeing off the far-right with chants in Liverpool of ‘Scousers, united, will never be defeated’, while in Bristol people reportedly chatted, listened to music, and joined in anti-fascist chants, holding up signs reading “fascists are the minority” and “refugees are welcome”.

A great chant earlier in the week greeted the far-right in Bristol too – ‘We are many, you are few. We are Bristol, who are you?’

And just look at that front page of the Times this morning, showing anti-fascist protesters in East London.

There is still hope after all.