Much the same is about to happen to charities. Journalists have investigated Islamic "charities" funnelling money to terrorist groups many times. The "third sector" has never treated their reports seriously and asked why the supporters and enablers of violence should have tax relief. In its little world, one did not raise such matters. Once again, and almost from nowhere, official patience has snapped. The Charity Commission is demanding new powers and describes Islamic extremism as "potentially the most deadly" problem it faces. The freedom of the great and the good to do good works is about to be constrained because they were neither great nor good enough to fight the vicious men in their midst — or even acknowledge their existence.

The new restrictions on schools and charities are as nothing when set against the astonishingly authoritarian attack on civil liberties that is heading towards us. Theresa May is proposing to threaten schools and universities with legal action if they fail to address child radicalisation or ban extremists from preaching on campus,  to relocate terror suspects around the country, and prevent insurers from funding ransom payments to terrorist groups.

The government has said it wants to go further and impose "Extremism Disruption Orders" once it can secure a parliamentary majority. They would allow judges to ban people deemed extremists from broadcasting, protesting or even posting messages on Facebook or Twitter without official permission. George Osborne says he wants to "eliminate extremism in all its forms". The police will not just arrest those who call for murder, as they have always done, but people who "spread hate but do not break laws".

True liberals always held that people should be free to speak their minds as long as they did not incite violence. Now the Home Office wants laws that will force us to be nice citizens, who never say anything the thin-skinned might consider "hateful" or "inappropriate". Secularists fear that atheists will be locked up for being beastly about religion. Christians fear that evangelicals will be jailed for being beastly about gays. We will live in a country where we cannot utter a controversial opinion.

Outrageous! Grotesque! Intolerable! I can condemn the government all day and all night. But I can see why it is calling in the cops.

According to my colleague Shiraz Maher, there are now more British Muslims fighting for Islamic State than serving in the British Army. According to the government's Prevent programme, more than 30 per cent of people convicted for al-Qaeda-associated terrorist offences in the UK between 1999 and 2009 attended university or a higher education institution. And according to every police officer and Home Office minister you hear, the security services worry themselves sick about the body count when the men of Islamic State return, filled with hatred of the West, of Jews, of gays — of everyone and everything their fascistic ideology denounces.

One product of our multicultural society who concerns them is Nasser Muthana. He may or may not have hacked off the heads of Islamic State captives and posted videos online celebrating the atrocity. He certainly boasted on Twitter: "Kafir [non-believers] are afraid we will slaughter Yazidis, our deen [religious path] is clear we will kill their men, take their women and children as slaves insha'Allah."