Conservatives would usually be the first to complain when police officers are diverted from their duties tackling crime and maintaining order to participate in a publicity stunt. Yet it was Rishi Sunak who last week summoned police chiefs to Downing Street for no better reason than to provide him with an audience of blue uniforms to hear his unevidenced claim that there is a “growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule” in Britain. A consensus among whom? The hosts of GB News? The most rabidly rightwing tabloid ranters? The leadership of the Reform party?
