This was my openiong monoogue from last evening's LBC show. I hadn't prepared it. I just spoke from the heart.

 

On Tuesday, the Prime Minister spoke at the Labour Party conference, telling us how much he loves this 'beautiful, tolerant, diverse country'.

You might think those are easy words for a politician to say. But I believe he meant them. I think he felt them. And I think those words reflect what most of us in this country feel.

But right now, there is a cancer in this country, a cancer we need to root out.

It is the cancer of people who don’t just hate this country, but hate particular groups within it.

Today, we saw that hatred in Manchester. The attack was clearly motivated by antisemitism.

If, over the past couple of years, you’ve ever doubted Jewish people when they say they are considering moving to Israel because it feels safer, today made it clear why they feel that way.

There has been an open season on Jews in this country. Often from people who fail, or refuse, to understand that being Jewish is not the same as supporting the actions of the Israeli government.

Whenever there has been an Islamist terror attack in this country, I’ve always tried to encourage British Muslims to call in and say: “Not in our name.” And they have. Hundreds, thousands of them have.

So why, then, would anyone assume that every Jewish person in this country thinks: “Yes, I fully support the killing of tens of thousands in Gaza. Yes, I fully agree with the actions of the Israeli government. Yes, I totally back Benjamin Netanyahu”?

Can you not see the hypocrisy in even thinking that?

When we witness the hatred on the streets, people shouting pro-Hitler slogans, telling Jews filming them to “go back to your ovens”, then we begin to understand what Jewish people have endured in recent months in this country.

So, what do we do about it?

I’ve covered countless terror attacks over my 16 years on LBC. And every time, we hear the same words from politicians: “It must never happen again. We’ll do everything in our power to stop it. We need better community relations,” and so on.

And yet, years later, it happens again.

Today, we’ve been spared a worse tragedy. We haven’t had a major terror attack in this country for some time, and it is deeply sad that lives were lost. But let’s be honest: if the police hadn’t arrived so quickly, this could have been a mass killing. Two people died, tragic, and I do not minimise that. But it could have been so much worse.

Credit to Greater Manchester Police. I don’t know if they anticipated an attack on a synagogue, but they were in the right place at the right time. They did a fantastic job, and they have kept the public informed throughout their investigation.