DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Weak Met has fuelled this Armistice unrest

Soft-touch policing may have its place but there are times when this approach creates far more problems than it solves.

Scotland Yard is finding this out to its cost over its pathetically submissive handling of the seemingly endless pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Every weekend since Hamas terrorists murdered more Jews in a single day than at any time since the Holocaust, Met officers have stood idly by and allowed hate-filled, anti-Semitic thuggery to go unpunished.

Emboldened by this feebleness, the protesters now plan to march through London on Armistice Day. This raises the risk that they will disrupt people wanting to observe a respectful silence for those who died to preserve our freedoms.

Fearing they would target the Cenotaph, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has been reduced to pleading with the organisers to postpone the inflammatory march. Humiliatingly for him, they refused.

Demonstrators gather at a pro-Palestine rally in Trafalgar Square in central London on Saturday

Police officers watch over people leaving a pro-Palestine protest at Charing Cross Station

Has the UK’s biggest police force ever looked so weak? By failing to clamp down on criminal activity during the marches, senior officers have encouraged Islamist extremists to flex their muscles.

So it’s easy to understand why the far-Right English Defence League is getting in on the act, with its odious founder Tommy Robinson whipping up a counter-demonstration on social media.

A ghastly alliance of football hooligans is threatening to ‘defend the Cenotaph’ from being violated by pro-Palestinian yobs. Now white supremacists are involved, the Met is keeping in mind banning both demos.

Protesters in Charing Cross Station, London in a pro-Palestine demonstration on November 4

The truth is, if the police had taken a much firmer line from the start against those preaching violence and racial hatred, this potentially explosive confrontation might have been averted.

On November 11, we remember the courage and sacrifice of our greatest generations. The fascistic bully-boys – on both sides of the demonstration – are exactly the kind of contemptible dregs they fought to protect us from.

Now time for tax cuts

They were up before dawn at the palace to prepare for the big day. The carriages were polished, the horses groomed, the sovereign’s regalia laid out.

The State Opening of Parliament symbolises constitutional continuity and that was felt keenly yesterday, this being Charles’s first King’s Speech as monarch.

Not that a stranger would have known. He looked thoroughly at home.

But at the beginning he struck a deeply personal note, paying tribute to his ‘beloved mother’, the late Queen, who performed this important duty so impeccably for so long.

This is the parliamentary occasion that sets out the Government’s legislative vision for the coming year. With all eyes turning to a general election, it is vital Rishi Sunak shows voters the Tories haven’t run out of steam.

King Charles and Queen Camilla sit in the House of Lords as he conducts the State Opening of Parliament on Tuesday

Rishi Sunak leaves Downing Street on Tuesday morning ahead of the State Opening of Parliament

To that end, there were welcome measures, including tougher sentences for the worst criminals, bolstering energy security, and stopping hard-Left unions causing strike chaos. These laws aim to draw battle lines between the Conservatives and Labour. But the question is, will any see the light of day before Britain goes to the polls?

And too many proposals are either insubstantial, trivial or narrowly technocratic. A crackdown on London’s rickshaws is surely the least of the country’s worries.

Most troubling is the lack of anything to quicken the pulse on the economy. If the Government is to extend its reign beyond the next election, it must do more to help hard-pressed families and businesses.

The Chancellor has been reluctant to ease their financial burden, despite the Treasury raking in record revenues. It’s surely time to give some of that money back to them.

In a fortnight, Jeremy Hunt will set out his growth and spending plans in the autumn statement. It must be a bold declaration of tax-cutting intent. No more timidity.

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