Cottrell, who’s done prison time but doesn’t look it, is the United Patriots Front leader described in the mildest terms by Channel Seven as a "right wing activist".

Young Liberals are right wing activists. The Institute of Public Affairs are right wing activists.

Blair Cottrell is something else, a man who happily claims to have used violence and terror to manipulate women and who apparently thinks the Maximum Nazi is an excellent role model for schoolchildren to contemplate.

But he lifts weights, he dresses well and so he got to appear in a news story on Seven about "activists" in Melbourne "hoping to harness the power of social media to protect them and their families" to "create a kind of neigbourhood watch" to dispatch "locals" to incidents and attacks as they are reported.

Watching the story on Seven, listening to Blair Cottrell, viewers were left in no doubt that there was a crisis, suburban Melbourne was terrified, the state government was paralysed and it was all the fault of African gangs.

None of this is true.