What’s going on in the Middle East at the moment - after Hamas committed an appalling attack on Israel and Israel responded with an all-encompassing war - feels too mind-bendingly awful to sensibly comment on.
But it is an extra shame to see how it, as world events often seem to do, translates to an senseless, pointless, futile increase in acts of criminal hatred and violence in faraway places.
So far this month there’s been 174 incidents of Islamophobic crime recorded in London, which is an increase of 176% compared to the 65 reported in the same period last year.
The increase in anti-Semitic offences has been even higher. There’s been 408 such offences recorded. That’s an increase of almost 1400% compared to the 28 recorded in the same period last year.
The police have made 75 arrests so far that they say are linked to the conflict.
In general, crime report statistics are notoriously difficult to interpret. There are many reasons that crime report numbers can change that are unrelated to the number of crimes that actually took place. But these changes are so stark and so sadly explainable and predictable that it’s hard to imagine this shift isn’t real.