The government is getting a good deal of stick for not accepting a proposed new definition of “Islamophobia”. Labour and most opposition parties have accepted it so why not the Tories too, critics ask. Ministers are attacked for ignoring a growing problem of abuse suffered by British Muslims. But there are good reasons for wariness about an officially adopted definition like this. So let me first take you back to October 2007.

The House of Commons was debating the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill: what MPs call a “Christmas tree bill” containing a job lot of often unrelated bits and pieces of legislative initiative or reform. But among these sat one measure, Section 79, that was so uncontroversial that no member who spoke at second