Mark Andrews: Impotence of the free world, facial recognition cameras, and why political activism is the new football hooliganism

The thought occurred to me while watching the venom being spewed out by protesters following the October 7 attacks, and Israel's subsequent retaliation.

There is no doubt the situation in the Middle East is complicated, with arguments to be had on both sides. But do the braying yobs trudging through our towns bellowing hate-filled chants strike you as the kind who have peace in mind?

But this is the age of tribalism, where everyone picks a side and defends it to the death, no matter how ridiculous the arguments become. It's not about testing ideas in robust and courteous debate, it's about identity, fighting for your own lot and hating 'the enemy'.

Not unlike the Chelsea Hunters v the Millwall Bushwackers, although hopefully less violent.

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The crisis in the Middle East requires strong leadership from the free world, a wise elder statesman with some stirring words to calm tensions. Unfortunately, we've got Joe Biden, who refers to murderous terrorists as 'the other team' and suggests 'they gotta know how to shoot straight'.

In a sensible world, the Republicans would select somebody with gravitas and maturity to challenge him at next year's election. Instead they will choose Donald Trump.

The future looks bleak.

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Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley reckons facial recognition will be a 'game-changer' in tackling the shoplifting epidemic.

Yeah, right.

A few weeks ago, a young lady telephoned the newsroom to complain that we had reported her conviction for four counts of shoplifting without permission. When it was gently put to her that this was normal practice, she brazenly insisted she had a string of previous convictions, none of which had come to media attention. The general attitude was she had not really done much wrong, and that we should let her carry on thieving in peace.

These attitudes do not come out of thin air, but from decades of indifference from successive governments, soft 'community' sentencing, and police chiefs who treat shop theft as marginally more serious than parking on yellow lines – and considerably less harmful than using the wrong pronouns. Not forgetting, of course, big businesses which cynically turn a blind eye if it means cutting security costs.

It will take more than a new gizmo to put this genie back into the bottle.

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What I suspect will actually happen is that while facial recognition will have a marginal impact in stamping out shop theft, it will prove a great boon in enforcing new motoring taxes, curtailing free speech, nicking people for using the wrong recycling bins and countless other ways to micromanage our daily lives. Brave new world.