"Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream. We’ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”

In a society that has turned anti-racism into almost a secular religion, those were brave words from David Cameron at the Munich Security Conference in February 2011, especially when he backed them up by refusing public money to any Muslim organisation that did not subscribe to the British values of universal human rights, equality before the law, democracy and integration rather than separation.

Monday night’s atrocity proves that there is no time to waste in intensifying every aspect of the Government’s “Pursue, Prevent, Protect, Prepare” strategy. The “Pursue” aspect is working well – with dozens of plots uncovered before they can wreak the horrific massacre of the innocents that we saw in Manchester – but the “Prevent” side needs to be beefed up immediately, and the Cobra meetings this week are the best time to start. How can it be that the budget for Prevent being negotiated between the Treasury and the Home Office was stalled until after the general election?