Rationality in a Godless World Leads More Easily to Unethical Behaviour

Can human beings behave ethically in the absence of a belief in God?

First of all, we have to distinguish between individuals and societies. The short answer is individuals can, societies cannot.

I'll leave societies to another article. In this I want to concentrate on individuals.

Although it's possible for many non-believers (but not for all, that's why societies cannot function without a religious foundation) to have an ethical system that guides their conduct, it's undeniable that this desirable state of affairs is more difficult to maintain for them than for those who truly believe in the Christian God.

Let's give an example. Arthur is an atheist who thinks that people should be nice to each other and behave decently and honestly simply because it creates a better environment for everybody and, purely using his reason, he arrived at the conclusion that all benefit from social interactions conducted according to the principle of looking at things from the others' perspectives, putting yourselves in their shoes (well expressed in the Golden Rule "Do unto others as you would have them do to you").

We all know that not everyone behaves this way. One day Arthur hires a building firm, Smith, to do extensive external repair works to his house, which cost him a lot of money but could not be avoided or postponed. He treats the company well, doesn't complain about the job done unless necessary, pays all his invoices immediately, doesn't protest too much about the price asked. He is assertive when it comes to protecting his rights and is not a pushover, but other than that he doesn't make things difficult for the firm.

Arthur then finds out that Smith has carried out similar works for one of his own neighbours, Bob, a very grumpy and unlikeable chap. Bob has acted in exactly the opposite manner. He and his wife made life hell for the builders during their work, finding faults with everything and anything they did. In addition, they didn't pay some of the invoices and, two months after the job was finished, are still refusing to pay in full, giving several pretexts.

But what shocks Arthur most is Smith's response. The company people, although privately despising Bob and callig him names, treat him with respect and go out of their way to accommodate him. They even offer him delayed payment options and discounts they never even mentioned to Arthur.

Now, Arthur is only human after all. Rational, striving to be a moral person, but with emotions of anger, envy, self-doubt and resentment always boiling under the surface and close to pouring out at the first provocation.

This particular provocation is not small either. Now we have Arthur battling within himself, against himself.

The first thing he thinks is that behaving nicely doesn't pay, whereas being a bully does. So, the rational basis for his choice of decent conduct seems shaky now.

What in this case has been the outcome of a moral choice of action, if you have to calculate it in terms of self-interest, although a rational, enlightened self-interest, enlarged to comprehend the interest of the whole society to which you belong?

There are times when pure rationality, if you are atheist, doesn't lead you to an ethical choice. Benefit scroungers who live off the others make a perfectly rational choice. So do criminals who know they won't be caught.

And in many other cases, like the one of my example of Arthur, even ordinary, decent people who sincerely desire that an ethical path is the same as a path of justice, that doing the right thing results in a reward and not a punishment, have to give up in desperation, abandoning the hope that we can square this circle in this life.

But if they could believe that justice always triumphs - if not in this, then in the next world - because there is a giver of justice who also gave life to everything that exists, this belief could act as a great help at times when being ethical may not seem so rational after all.

Our life is made up of so many banal examples as that of Arthur's predicament. It's perhaps not too much to bear for our shoulders, or maybe it is. Either way, it's overwhelmingly obvious that a belief in a just God like the Christian God greatly helps people maintain an ethical outlook and behaviour in even the most difficult circumstances.

If you don't believe, you may think that whatever is good and expedient for you is OK, as long as nobody can see you. If you believe, you know that there is someone who always sees you.

But that is not to be taken in the sense of a CCTV camera. Because, if that someone is merciful, understands and forgives, you don't feel under an external control: you just feel less alone in your constant struggles.


Photo courtesy of the website Human Health and Animal Ethics

The Da Vinci Code: Devious Ways to Create Doubts

The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code

In a blog I used to have I've found an article about The Da Vinci Code. It was written in May 2006, but the tacticts employed by those who wish to attack Christianity with devious means are still the same, making the piece still relevant.

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If I want to make a lot of money by writing an absurd story with no evidence to support it, disproven by historians, art historians and archaelogists, a story intended to attack Christianity which is an easy target because it is already under siege, a story that will treat Jesus Christ in the same way that Hello! and other gossip magazines treat celebrities, what shall I do?

Wait a minute, someone else has already done it.

They have written The Da Vinci Code.

First of all, Da Vinci is not a surname. Leonardo was illegitimate, and "da Vinci" simply means "from Vinci". It's the same as calling St Francis of Assisi just "of Assisi". A bad start for a writer.

Secondly, the book relies on the widespread ignorance of Christian matters among the general public. To list all the gross errors, inaccuracies, disproven hypotheses, reliance on false documents, distortions in history of art, “elaborate hoaxes”, falsified history, and so on contained in the book would take much more than an article.

Historians, art historians, archaelogists have conclusively demonstrated that the whole story of the book is a lie (you could call it a work of fiction, if it weren't for the ambiguity of its status), not a fact.

Some of this is revealed in the book The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction? by Hank Hanegraaff and Paul L. Maier.

And, if this were a book (and film) offensive to Buddhism, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, it would be considered a hate crime. If, God forbid, it were offensive to Islam, on top of being labelled a hate crime it would also make book author, movie director and producers’ fear for their lives (in fact, a film about Islam would be even too dangerous to make).

But to offend Christianity is “art”, as in the case of Chris Ofili's painting of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung and surrounded by cut-outs from pornographic magazines.

The omnipresence of the much over-used words "Islamophobic" and "anti-Semitic" obviously shows that certain groups are protected by political correctness, but one group is not.

Do you have doubts whether to believe the story of The Da Vinci Code?

Try this.

With a little intelligence, logic and thought, you may be able to solve your doubts.

Why do you think that The Da Vinci Code was intended by its author as a work of fiction?

Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code : A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine

For one very simple reason: because it contains accusations and claims against a real organization, the Catholic Opus Dei.

If these charges had been expressed in a declared non-fiction work (an expose, for example), the organization concerned could have sued the book’s author for libel and defamation.

Now, if the author had felt sure of his own accusations against the Opus Dei, he wouldn’t have had any trouble with this possibility of being sued, actually he would have welcomed a court case where his claims would be vindicated.

He obviously knew that he did not have a case against them, as it is expounded in the book.

So, he decided for the fiction label of his book.

At the same time, in true gutter press hack style, he did not want the truth to stand in the way of a good story.

So what did he do?

He wanted to have his cake and eat it.

He wrote a book, allegedly fiction, but by using historical figures, real organizations and true paintings as his book’s subjects, he could maintain an ambiguity that, while protecting him from possible legal actions, gave nonetheless the impression that he was talking about reality and historical events, making a gullible public believe what he wanted them to believe.

He did not have the guts to challenge his targets directly, face to face, and have his claims refuted during a lawsuit.

This is the work of a coward, who is afraid of a legal action for libel and defamation, but is not afraid of spreading lies.

In fact, the parallel with tabloid gossip journalism is not coincidental. The way that book treats Jesus Christ is not very far from the way the gutter press treats celebrities.

Some people have pointed out that works like Independence Day are not real accounts of an alien invasion because the screenwriters used real organizations like the Air Force and the President of the US, or The Red Badge of Courage was not about a real soldier because the character was in the Union Army.

But not every historical novel or period drama film, or any other work of fiction with a historical or real background, is the same as The Da Vinci Code.

In it, historical figures and institutions are the main characters in the (allegedly fictional) story, and not just part of the backdrop that “the screenwriters used”. They are the story, so anything that is said about them in the plot is either historically accurate or - if not - should be considered as fiction by the readers or movie-goers. But is it? Therein lies the ambiguity.

History is what The Da Vinci Code is about, unlike those other examples, where history and reality are the pretext or background.

The last time I checked, aliens trying to invade the earth were not part of the history curriculum.

And no, The Red Badge of Courage wasn't about a real soldier, and that's exactly what makes a comparison between the two books irrelevant: he was a fictional character; but Jesus Christ is not.

This explains why many people believe that The Da Vinci Code is true, whereas not many - fortunately - believe that aliens have tried to invade the earth. You wouldn’t see an online comment about alien stories, Independence Day and The Red Badge of Courage such as this:

The damn book is fiction but a great story. If there is any good to come out of all of this I hope it is that Christians will try and find the truth about the historical, factual Jesus. For far too long we 'little folk' have allowed ourselves to believe that which has been preached to us without question. Faith may be nice but even Christ Himself encouraged His contemporaries to search for the Living God. The majority of Christian Doctrine today has been sanitized, distilled and manufactured to fit the mold of a handful of power mad despots who used the story of Jesus to advance their own interests.

The examples of fiction books or films set against a historically true background - or in which the imaginary characters are surrounded by real figures and events - are irrelevant, because there was no intention in those works' authors to mislead the public into believing something untrue.

The ambiguity in The Da Vinci Code's status (fact or fiction), on the other hand, is manifest, and has been observed and remarked upon innumerable times.

Those who cannot see the difference are disingenuous or simply not clever.

And You Call These “Democratic Elections”?

Happy Saint George’s Day!

On 18 April this self-explanatory open letter was sent to the Electoral Commission. How can democratic elections be held if parties are not even allowed to say in any explicit form in official documents what they stand for?

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Dear Electoral Commissioners

I represent the political party Liberty GB, which is standing candidates in the South East of England in the forthcoming European Parliament election.

As part of our preparation for the election, I recently attempted to register a number of new party descriptions with the Electoral Commission. It was our intention to choose the best of these for printing on the ballot papers. In total, thirteen descriptions were submitted, of which all but three were rejected. Among the rejected descriptions were the following:

End multiculturalism, support Western civilisation.
No to Islamisation. Yes to Britain!
Immigration, no. Islamisation, no. Britain, yes!
Stop Britain becoming Islamic.
No to hate preachers, jihad, terrorism.
Safeguarding Britain's future, no to sharia.

The rejection letter (attached) received yesterday from the Electoral Commission sought to justify their decision on the basis that the descriptions are "likely to be … 'offensive'". No definition of "offensive" was offered, neither did the Commission give any indication as to who might in future be offended by these descriptions, nor indeed the basis for the prediction.

We find it difficult to imagine how any decent, law-abiding voter could be offended by a statement opposing "hate preachers, jihad, terrorism". Regarding opposition to sharia and to the Islamisation of Britain, these represent large, growing and evidence-based strands of public opinion – legitimate opinion that cannot be properly represented politically if its designating terms are censored out of electoral communications. Regarding multiculturalism, you may be aware that several European heads of state, including our very own Prime Minister, have publicly criticised it far more strongly than our first description above does. Is the Electoral Commission saying that it is legitimate for established politicians to express opposition to multiculturalism, but not those seeking elected office?

The Commission argues that within the rejected descriptions is an "implication that some [unspecified] groups in society were to be excluded, rejected, disparaged or disliked". In response, we would point out that even within the groups the Commission studiously avoids naming (we make an educated guess as to who they might be), there are significant strands of opposition to jihad, sharia, hate preachers, and indeed the Islamisation of Britain.

You surely do not need us to tell you that free elections depend upon the capacity of political parties and candidates to communicate clearly to the electorate what they stand for so that voters can make an informed choice at the ballot box.

Should not the broad strands of public opinion that Liberty GB represents be allowed expression in a free election? And is it not more than a little hypocritical of the Electoral Commission to be citing "freedom of expression" and "freedom of thought [and] belief" in the context of this censorial ruling?

The writer George Orwell said: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." By prohibiting Liberty GB from expressing widely-held positions (that some unspecified group might or might not want to hear), the Electoral Commission strikes another small blow against freedom of speech in Britain – the central freedom that earlier generations of British people risked or gave their lives defending.

Consider this a formal complaint.

Yours sincerely

Dr George Whale
Nominating Officer, Liberty Great Britain

Enza Ferreri on the Leftist Ideology Disease



Vote for Liberty GB in the European Elections on the 22nd of May because Liberty GB is the only credible party that can change what's wrong, since it's the only party which has clear ideas about what caused it.

Today's major symptoms of the disease that affects Britain – mass immigration, Islamisation, multiculturalism – have been caused by the Left's cultural dominance in Britain – as all over the West – over the past 50-60 years.

Uncontrolled immigration – in fact, invasion, as this is something about which the British people were never consulted and, if they had been, would very likely have rejected – was something wanted by the Left. The previous Labour government is the one most responsible for it, with its open-door immigration policy.

Multiculturalism and Islamisation are natural consequences of both mass immigration and Leftist ideology.

The Left believes that Britain has a dirty past, imperialist and oppressive of the poorest people on earth. This is historical revisionism for ideological reasons: in reality the colonised countries and populations benefited from colonisation more than Britain did. But it doesn't matter if it's not true, because the Left believes it and it has the means to make many others believe it. As a consequence it has instilled in the British people a sense of guilt.

Also, unrestricted immigration is allowed, even encouraged by the Left because it's a form of redistribution of wealth, one of the Left's cardinal tenets. We are relatively rich, they are poor. Let's welcome them and shower them with benefits.

And why should British identity and culture be dominant? It's a form of cultural imperialism, they say. We're all the same. Purely leftist ideology, again.

This cultural relativism that doesn't judge or evaluate applies to Islam too, even to its appalling manifestations, from sex slavery of young white girls to honour killings.

Never mind, we must celebrate diversity, Islam included.

And also, and here we come to the crux of the cultural matter, why not? We don't believe in Christianity any more. So, why not Islam? It's a religion of the poorest people on earth, and that by itself is a reason to accept it and celebrate it – so they argue.

There is no doubt that the profound erosion of Christianity, its values and ethics has been accompanied by the rise to dominance of the leftist, in particular neo-Marxist, ideology because it has been caused by it, with its attacks against Christianity and propagation of atheism.

Historically Marxists, communists, anarchists have always been enemies of Christianity. "Religion is the opium of the people", Karl Marx said.

He and Engels also hated the family. They wanted to see it dead, and children communally raised.

We are certainly going in that direction, with the welfare state taking the place of fathers.

In our world, 'post-Christian', secular, neo-pagan, atheist, the family has also become much closer to Islam with its polygamy. We have multiple marriages and divorces, children forced to share their fathers with his other families, much like in polygamist Islam.

The Left's 'sexual revolution', the removal of sexual behaviour from the sphere of morality, the domain of ethics, has greatly contributed to that.

Only understanding the cause that has produced an unwanted effect can eliminate that cause and reverse that effect.

There's no other party today in Britain that has formulated such a clear analysis of the current problems as Liberty GB has.

We have detailed policies to solve what afflicts Britain. You can see them in full at libertygb.org.uk.

Please support, join, donate to Liberty GB, and visit our website.

Vote Liberty GB. My name is Enza Ferreri, and I'll be standing as a candidate with Paul Weston and Jack Buckby at the European Elections on May 22nd. Thank you.

Non-EU Doctors Can Be a Risk for Patient Safety, Research Says

The recent news that doctors trained outside the EU perform remarkably worse than others on key exams and performance reviews has created fears and lack of trust in doctors.

This is the result of a study commissioned by the General Medical Council and carried out by the University College London and University of Cambridge, published in the British Medical Journal - the most rigorous study to date – , and a research by Durham University also published in the BMJ.

Non-EU-trained doctors make up a quarter of the NHS medical workforce. We’ve repeatedly – in fact, whenever there is a debate on immigration - been told how immigration has been the saviour of the NHS, which couldn’t be run without foreign doctors. And now scientific studies show that these same doctors, in a high percentage of cases, represent a risk for patients’ safety.

According to the new research, more than 80 per cent of NHS doctors trained abroad do worse than the average British doctor in exams to join the professional bodies for GPs and hospital doctors, and half of them would fail the tests passed by British doctors.

More than 88,000 foreign-trained doctors are registered to work in Britain, including 22,758 from Europe. They account for approximately two thirds of those struck off each year. The country with the largest number of doctors removed or suspended from the medical register is India, followed by Nigeria and Egypt.

“We have no idea about the medical schools they come from and inevitably they’re going to be very varied,” said Professor Chris MacManus, who led the UCL study. He also commented: “There is no real mechanism for checking that doctors coming from outside Britain have been trained to the same level as British doctors.”

The UCL’s findings have been made public now – despite the fact that the GMC working party was due to report later this year – in order to defend an allegation that the GMC was racist in marking the exams of foreign doctors.

The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin launched a judicial review claiming the GMC failed too many foreign doctors in GP tests. But a High Court judge ruled against it this month after seeing the UCL’s report.

Prof McManus said: “We’ve been through the figures with a fine-toothed comb and there is simply nothing to show that examiners are being racist.”

It’s the same old story: fears of accusations of racism – along with problems of staffing an overstretched NHS - trump everything, including the safety of patients. Will something be done now, after the GMC-commissioned research showed more wide-ranging inadequacies than expected? The language skills have also been questioned.

Various medical authorities are now claiming that the pass mark that enables foreign-trained doctors to work in Britain should be raised “in the interests of patient safety”.

Isn’t it interesting that this is what the Liberty GB party, contesting the 22 May European Elections in the South East, was already writing in early 2013 in its manifesto? One of its policies is:

“Rigorously test foreign doctors before licensing them to practice in the UK. Foreign trained doctors are statistically more liable to malpractice and incompetence.”

Enza Ferreri Euro 2014 Election Video. "Immigration and Islamisation: Let's Stop this Madness"



In all probability you wonder why you should vote for another new party, why this small party Liberty GB should make any difference, that others haven't made.

Yet, in all probability you are also one of the 70% of people in this country who want immigration to be reduced or stopped completely, and one of the many and increasing number of people who are worried about Islam.

You are right to feel that way on both counts. Immigration is causing great problems. Economic first: immigrants from outside the European Union take £100billion more in benefits than they pay back in taxes. This is not tabloid sensationalism or right-wing propaganda. It's the result of a 16-year study from University College London, the most far-reaching study ever conducted of the impact of migration on taxpayers, based on official and government figures. Non-European immigrants dig a deep hole in our finances: the amount taken in benefits and services by them is 14% higher than money put back.

What about European immigrants then? They pay 4 per cent more into the tax system than they take out, while British-born people pay in 7 per cent less than they receive from the state.

But this does not mean that, as the spin goes, immigrants – even if only of European origin – positively contribute to British society. It just means that European immigrants, although certainly not as ruinous as the non-Europeans, when they reach a certain number are still a big problem for British economy, as they take jobs that would otherwise be filled by British people, who in turn because of that have to be on the dole, which is a burden for taxpayers.

So, when all is considered, the contribution, even from hard-working, law-abiding and well-integrated European immigrants, is still negative for Britons. If natives did those jobs, they would contribute to the revenue the same amount of tax as the immigrants, instead of living on benefits.

The problems caused by immigration are not only economic, though. They are also social and cultural. British people forced into interminable queues for public services, schools, hospitals, GP surgeries, public housing. Costs of accommodation, bought and rented, rising and making it difficult for young people to leave home or couples to get married, as housing demand outstrips supply and pushes prices up.

Muslim immigration, in addition to all this, causes special problems. Islam is not what the politicians want you to believe. Islam's holy scriptures are divisive and provoke violence, because the final goal of Islam is the imposition of its dominance and its laws on the whole of humanity, with whatever means available, peaceful if possible, non-peaceful if necessary. You can see this happening all over the world, wherever the number of Muslims reach a sizeable percentage of the population, which is soon to be Britain's fate as they out-reproduce the British natives at a very fast rate.

There are among Muslims non-violent and decent people, no doubt, but what they do or want doesn't count for as long as they remain Muslim, because they in the end have to accept the rulings of Islamic law, which is inimical to British civilisation.

Islam is not a real religion, trying to morally improve human beings, but it's a very real political ideology of supremacism.

You have already witnessed many manifestations of this impossibility to reconcile Islam with British life and values, from halal meat pushed down your and your children's throat to sex slave and paedophile rings – who are largely Muslim – raping young white girls; from British soldiers beheaded in the street to hate preachers and terrorists protected by mosques.

Despite this, Britain is becoming progressively Islamised day by day. One morning, it will be indistinguishable from Pakistan or Somalia.

But enough with the bad news.

The good news is that now YOU can do something to initiate a change, in the simplest possible way: with YOUR vote for Liberty GB at the European Elections of May 22.
Change will not be immediate, but will start gradually and then gather momentum, in the same way as an initial decline has slowly turned into a fall into the precipice under our own eyes.

If damage has effectively been done, it can just as effectively be undone.

You need a party to represent you. Spontaneous protests, as we have seen, may attract headlines but don't produce results.

On the other hand, mainstream parties – and that includes UKIP – are too comfortable to want and enact real change, they need the votes of immigrants and Muslims to continue in their cushy jobs.

But in Liberty GB we are not career politicians, we're in politics because we can't stand what's going on any longer.

We have in our manifesto policies that will stop this madness. There is a domino effect in social politics, a vicious circle that multiplies the negative effects of wrong policies; but similarly, the right policies can produce a positive chain reaction, a virtuous circle.

Check out our manifesto – at libertgb.org.uk – to see the measures we want to introduce.

Support us, join us or simply donate money to us. And, more importantly, please vote Liberty GB at the European Elections in May. My name is Enza Ferreri, and I am a candidate. Thank you.

Britain’s Jihadists Within

First published on FrontPage Magazine.

By Enza Ferreri



Some of the “freedom fighters” who are at war against the evil tyrant Assad in Syria, the “rebels” whom both Obama and Cameron wanted to help, have now been re-classified as “the biggest threat to Britain's security” and a “greater threat than al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan”. The British Home Office identifies Syria as “the most significant development in global terrorism.”

More than half of anti-terror investigations by the UK security service MI5 involve “Britons” who went to fight in Syria. Charles Farr - the Home Office’s terror chief - and others warned that the Syrian war is stoking the biggest terror threat to the West since September 11, and this problem is predicted to persist for as long as the hostilities will continue.

Syria is much closer to Europe than Afghanistan and Pakistan, making it a particularly easy and dangerous destination for UK Muslims who come back well trained, armed and ready for business: terrorism. And because the security services monitor about half of them, the risk is very high.

Robert Spencer asks some pertinent questions:

Why aren’t they monitoring the rest? And why were these men let back into the country in the first place? Simply because they’re citizens? (Are they even all citizens?)

In the past three years, from the beginning of the conflict, no fewer than 500 Britons have travelled to Syria to fight, many more than the corresponding number for Iraq. According to French President Francois Hollande, they are actually up to 700.

Between 250 and 400 of them are believed to be back with us, although the number may be higher. Apparently, they found life there “too hard”, so they say. But they may have been encouraged to return “home” in order to carry out attacks in the UK.

Hundreds more are still in Syria, and one of them has posted an internet video urging his coreligionists in Britain to join them and help their Syrian brothers and sisters, saying: "The doors of jihad are still open." He is a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a group which wants Syria to become an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law and which is considered too extreme even by Al-Qaeda, that officially disowned it. The first provincial capital to be occupied by ISIS was the city of Raqqa, on whose Christian community it has imposed payment of the jizya and other rules associated with the dhimmi status.

These are people who know their Islam, no doubt. They’ve forced even the BBC reporters to become familiar with the triple choice: convert, submit, die.

Aymenn al-Tamimi, a University of Oxford expert on Iraqi and Syrian jihadists, said:

In case ISIS’s ambitions to a global caliphate were still not apparent to anyone, ISIS’s official Twitter account for Raqqa province had this to say on the imposition of the dhimmi pact: ‘Today in Raqqa and tomorrow in Rome.’

ISIS uses British radicalised recruits, like Anil Khalil Raoufi, the University of Liverpool student of engineering who was recently killed in Syria.

The Syrian war is helping to accelerate the “final solution” for Christians in the Middle East.

The rebels’ ruthlessness is not in question. A Facebook video shows a British jihadist in Syria torturing and executing another jihadi who had insulted Allah, with the caption: “I can’t wait for feeling you get when U just killed some1.”

“Who are the British jihadists in Syria?” asks the BBC. The answer: “The Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London says most British jihadists are university-educated Muslims of British Pakistani origin in their 20s.” Ah! And I thought that, as the Left says, violent jihad and Muslim terrorism are caused by poverty and deprivation. It turns out that, once again, these people are mainly middle class.

UK security services last autumn intercepted a plot by "British" jihadists returning from Syria planning a Nairobi-style gun attack on civilians in a crowded location, maybe in London.

Furthermore, Al-Qaeda urged “lone wolf” terrorists trained in Syria to target the Queen with bomb attacks at British sporting events, including the Derby. Cheltenham races, Wimbledon and Football Association Cup matches are other recommended potential targets that could cause “maximum carnage”.

The recommendations come from Inspire, an English-language online magazine produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), that lists Britain as Al Qaeda's biggest target after America.

The big question is: what to do?

Robert Spencer is not the only one calling for not letting Syria jihadists back into the UK. The Week has a sensible suggestion:

Pass a law forbidding any British subject from travelling to Syria - unless registered with a charity authorised by the Foreign Office...

But anyone suspected of making an unauthorised trip to Syria would not be re-admitted to the United Kingdom. Put up posters to that effect at every airport and seaport... "If you travel to Syria illegally, you will not be allowed to return here."

Preventing any more of these jihadists coming 'home' would be the simplest solution. Dealing with an attack by such men once it kicks off will be difficult. Terrorists on shooting sprees of this kind inflict damage quickly, relying on a shock effect to cow their intended victims. No doubt the SAS or SBS will arrive, but even they will be lucky to arrive in time.

The butcher's bills have been quite severe. Mumbai: 153 killed and more than 600 wounded. Nairobi: 67 dead and 175 wounded. In both cases hundreds of millions of pounds worth of damage were also caused to property. Imagine if something similar were to happen in London.

The UK’s Home Office, despite tough talking, has let these potential terrorists back into the country. We’ve heard threats to arrest and prosecute them from the Crown Prosecution Service.

There have been arrests: while only 24 people last year, already 20 this year, including Moazzam Begg, a former Guantánamo detainee – yes, one of those innocent souls – whose trial date has been set in October.

But his arrest has caused protests from the Muslim community, claiming that they are being unfairly targeted. What’s new?

That has made government officials even more “aware of the thin line they must tread in dealing with the problem” than they already were.

UK Muslim charities delivering aid in Syria complain that they risk being arrested for terrorism on their volunteers’ return home – as if one eighth of zakat (Islamic charity) were not obliged to finance jihad according to Sharia law.

In fact, ten Muslim charities linked to Syria are under surveillance after Adeel Ali, the head of a UK charity that raised thousands of pounds from the British public for Syria, has been photographed embracing masked fighters brandishing an AK47.

With Islam, you never know where the money supposedly for charity ends up. There’s ample evidence of "charity workers" in Syria supporting jihadi "martyrs”.

The Left, as usual, sides with the Muslim community, and has accused the government, like George Monbiot in The Guardian making this historical comparison: ‘If George Orwell and Laurie Lee were to return from the Spanish civil war today, they would be arrested under section five of the Terrorism Act 2006.”

But a legitimate question has been raised: how can a government, like the British one, which only a few months ago was prepared to join the war against Assad and be allied to the same "fighters" on whose side these jihadists are battling, now consider them criminals? Isn’t it a bit inconsistent? This, after all, is the same government that openly supports the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backs the Syrian rebels pursuing this goal, lost a parliamentary vote on military intervention in Syria last year - and is fully aware that its allies in the Gulf are funding al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Syria. This inconsistency clearly shows how that pro-rebel stance is a terrible error.

And how likely is it that anything will be done to British-citizen Syrian jihadists now, when in an analogous situation in the case of the NATO-backed uprising in Libya in 2011 no British jihadi fighting in Libya was arrested? After all, to punish them would be “Islamophobic”.