Mr Ahad, a Labour councillor, had put his four young children to bed when he answered the phone at five to midnight. “It was after I had said that Pegida was not welcome in Newcastle,” he explains, when we meet in a restaurant on West Road, the heart of the city’s Muslim population, where even Subway, the chain sandwich shop, has a halal-only branch. “He was swearing at me and he said he was going to behead me. It was very eerie to hear such a direct threat and I was silent for a long while after I put the phone down. It is not just the threat, it is the feeling that you are not welcome anymore.”