Is David Cameron the man who will destroy freedom in order to save it? His strange, wild speech on Monday suggests that he is. Mr Cameron, as careful observers already know, has a surprisingly poor grasp of history and politics and does not seem to be very clever.

The reception given to his outburst was mostly friendly, all across what is supposed to the spectrum of media opinion – though increasingly it is not a spectrum but a monolithic bloc.

Did they read it? I did. It is full of seething organic free-range tripe.

He actually tries to pretend that Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War has had nothing to do with the development of resentful Islamist militancy here. He does this by saying that the September 11 attack on Manhattan took place before the Iraq War.

Indeed it did. It was motivated – as one of the hijackers, Abdulaziz al-Omari, made clear in his own recorded testament – by Arab fury over America’s support for Israel, and the continued presence of US troops on Saudi soil. And it succeeded in changing US policy on both.

Strong words: David Cameron gave a speech on terrorism on Britain on Monday and how the country will face the challenges ahead going forward

Terror is rational. Terrorists know that it works, or why has the USA started supporting the two-state solution in Israel which it long opposed, and why is Martin McGuinness invited to Windsor Castle these days?

If Mr Cameron doesn’t like terrorism, then he wouldn’t have met Mr McGuinness and the even ghastlier IRA mouthpiece, Gerry Adams, at Downing Street last week. But he did. How can that be if, as the Prime Minister says, ‘British resolve saw off the IRA’s assaults on our way of life’. Oddly, you only saw the pictures of this pair meeting Jeremy Corbyn on the same day. The Downing Street meeting was not, it seems, filmed.

But that’s only a part of the problem. Mr Cameron claimed that we have, in this country, a ‘very clear creed’. But do we?

He says: ‘We are all British. We respect democracy and the rule of law. We believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of worship, equal rights regardless of race, sex, sexuality or faith.’

Little of this is true. Few regard themselves as British any more. Votes are bought by billionaire donations and incredibly expensive marketing. Democracy is surely not respected by the growing legions who don’t vote. And, as Mr Cameron acknowledged, there are now areas of this country where votes are rigged and voters intimidated for the first time since the days of Dickens.

Terror is rational. Terrorists know that it works, or why is Martin McGuinness invited to Windsor Castle these days?

Freedom of speech, for those who don’t accept multiculturalism or the sexual revolution, is increasingly limited, mainly by threats to the jobs of those who speak out of turn.

Mr Cameron is also plain wrong when he says our freedom stems from democracy. Democracy these days involves agreeing with whatever slogans the Murdoch press is shouting.

Our freedom comes from the 1689 Bill of Rights, which he doesn’t seem to know exists, from Magna Carta, which he can’t translate, from Habeas Corpus, which has been whittled away on the excuse of counter-terrorism, and from jury trial, which is fast disappearing. Freedom of speech certainly can’t be defended by banning ‘hate-preachers’, which Mr Cameron is so proud of doing. Freedom of speech is freedom above all for those whose views you dislike most.

Nor can it be strengthened by demanding that people publicly declare that they don’t hold certain opinions. Mr Cameron actually said: ‘We must demand that people also condemn the wild conspiracy theories, the anti-Semitism, and the sectarianism too. Being tough on this is entirely in keeping with our values’.

How on earth is he going to make this happen? Electric shocks until they get their minds right? Personally, I’d much rather know that such people held these frightful views, than have them forced to pretend they didn’t.

Then there is: ‘We need to put out of action the key extremist influencers who are careful to operate just inside the law, but who clearly detest British society and everything we stand for.’

Put out of action? If they are inside the law, which protects the freedom Mr Cameron so values, what does this foggy phrase mean? Sandbagging them as they come out of the mosque?

I’m also not very reassured that we have a Premier who thinks he can advise TV companies on who they should and should not invite on to the airwaves. I think we can all see where that leads.

Mr Cameron and Mr Blair, and their predecessors over decades, have gone a long way towards Islamising this country through uncontrolled immigration and state multiculturalism. They have begun to panic, because they at last realise what they have done, and rightly fear they cannot stop it.

For a moment or two, I thought my media colleagues were finally going to grasp the fact that cannabis use is now more legal in this country than it is in Amsterdam.

When an actual Police and Crime Commissioner can come out and say that he doesn’t think his force can be bothered to pursue small-scale cannabis farmers – and is not then disavowed or removed – that should be clear enough.

But the Billionaire Big Dope Lobby needs to make the false claim that we groan beneath a harsh regime of ‘prohibition’, under which harmless persons are ‘criminalised’ for supposedly victimless crimes.

By claiming this, it can win what it really wants – cannabis on open sale in the high street and the internet, marketed and advertised. Many politicians, frantic for new sources of money to service our gigantic national debt, also long to tax it. So the truth, that cannabis has been decriminalised in this country for decades, cannot be acknowledged.

And the other truth, that this very nasty drug is strongly correlated with lifelong mental illness, must also be suppressed.

Hardly a week passes when I do not hear a new story of a youthful cannabis user becoming mentally ill, his life and the lives of his family wrecked for ever.

How strange, in a country which frowns on greasy fast food and sugary drinks, and which rightly discourages alcohol and tobacco, that the legalisation of this dangerous poison is considered a noble and liberating cause.

A touching Tango on the road to Nazi disaster

One of many good things about the excellent new film 13 Minutes – about a failed attempt to kill Hitler in 1939 – is its thoughtful portrayal of Germany and Germans as they slid relentlessly and unconsciously downwards into disaster.

Like us, they had their carefree moments – would-be assassin Georg Elser (played by Christian Friedel) is here shown dancing an impromptu tango with his mistress Elsa (Katharina Schüttler).

But power and evil march on regardless, ruining the lives of those who ignore them.

New release: 13 Minutes is about a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1939 with Christian Friedel and Katharina Schüttler, pictured