IN case there’s any misunderstanding, I’ll spell this out. Daesh is a vile, fascistic organisation, steeped in the mediaeval misogyny that in past centuries led to hundreds of thousands of women across Europe being burned at the stake as witches.

At the heart of the Daesh philosophy is a raging hatred towards women. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is a notorious rapist, and the organisation is infamous for practising systematic rape of young girls. Until the police and security investigations are completed, we will not know for sure the motives and influences that led to the unbelievably shocking mass murder of innocent young people at the Manchester Arena. But it seems much more than a coincidence that the attack was targeted at a time and place guaranteed to be teeming with young women.

What possesses young men to blow themselves and others to smithereens is no doubt complex, but it seems to me that in there is a toxic cocktail of anger, loathing, alienation, desire for status and a heavy dose of the most extreme form of entitled masculinity.

Most decent people, not least in Manchester itself, reacted to this horrific atrocity with humanity and wisdom. They reacted with their gut instinct and understood the power of human empathy and connection. They called for unity and solidarity rather than hate. They sought to increase human understanding instead of entrenching people in enemy camps.

Part of the Daesh strategy in the West is to provoke an anti-Islamic backlash. In their dreams, they would love nothing better than to ignite a full-scale, religious-race war to furnish their ultra-sectarian, far-right ideology with a wider support base. It is heartening to see most people resisting their provocation to do so.

Being united in empathy should not muffle our political antennae though. Governments are not averse to exploiting hurt and fear to divert attention from their policies and implement measures they know they wouldn’t get away with in calmer times. Like putting the army on the streets and taking the opportunity to acclimatise us to the sight of men with guns on our way to work every day.

Unfortunately, we have more than our fair share of commentators who goad the politicians into playing into the hands of extremist fundamentalists by smearing an entire religion and stoking fear.

A report in the Times on Saturday claiming that the UK is “home to 23,000 jihadists” has sent the right-wing press into a frenzy of fear-mongering. “23,000 jihadis live in Britain — and are ready to ATTACK” screamed the front page of one tabloid.

Buried in the text is the rather less sensational figure of 3000 people who are being monitored as potential threats. The report, it should be said, is based on a completely unattributed source — which I have to say sounds like anonymous gossip from any one of the many thousands of staff who work in the British intelligence forces. I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but it did seem rather convenient that this information — or rumour — was released in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s rise in the opinion polls and his criticism of UK foreign policy since 2001. Even if it’s true that 3000 people are being monitored, that’s just a tiny fraction of the number of people who were under surveillance during the Northern Ireland troubles. As we know from recent revelations in the right-wing press, even Jeremy Corbyn was monitored by MI5 as a threat to national security because of his support for a united Ireland.

In these days of intense online surveillance, you can pretty much guarantee that any teenager who has ever expressed sympathy on Facebook for Daesh actions abroad will be registered as a potential terrorist. Had the internet existed in the 1970s and 1980s, we would have had many thousands of young people in working class communities in the West of Scotland marked down on security databases as potential IRA or UDA terrorists for their postings on Facebook. But back then, they just painted graffiti on walls or chanted slogans at football matches.

So let’s get a sense of proportion and recognise that 99.99 per cent plus of Muslims in Britain are as horrified as everyone else by the slaughter of young people leaving a pop concert. Probably even more so, because they know that such atrocities will be used by some to whip up a new wave of hatred against their community and their religion. They bear no responsibility for the Manchester attack, or the more general rise in terror across the globe. The same, I’m afraid, cannot be said for some of our leading politicians. On September 12, 2001, the day after the attack on the Twin Towers, Tony Blair sent a note to the White House asking President George W Bush to help him launch a War on Terror. “The West has pussyfooted around with these issues. These groups don’t play by liberal rules and we can’t either.”

From the start, there were loud voices everywhere warning that the recklessness of Bush and Blair would not reduce, but multiply terrorism and violence. Sixteen years later, over 170,000 people across the world have been killed by terrorist guns and bombs — the clear majority of them Muslim, it should be remembered. Countless hundreds of thousands more innocent people have been killed by the American and British armed forces.

None of the big parties has an unblemished record in opposing the War on Terror. In 2001, only the Scottish Socialists and Greens opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. But some have a more blemished record than others.

When Theresa May lashed out last week at Jeremy Corbyn for making the obvious, indisputable connection between the relentless rise in terrorism and the foreign policy decisions of the US and UK governments, she was not just trying to prove herself strong and stable after a week of dithering and vacillation: she was trying to wriggle away from her own contribution to the global chaos and carnage of the past 16 years.

Of all the party leaders standing in this election, she was unwavering in her support of Tony Blair and George W Bush. When millions marched on the streets against the Iraq war, and even Tory grandees such as Kenneth Clark and Malcolm Rifkind were warning of the dangers, Theresa May backed the invasion right down the line in vote after vote in the House of Commons.

Iraq was a turning point. It set the Middle East on fire. And Theresa May — then a Shadow Minister and chair of the Conservative Party — was among that infamous gang of New Labour and Tory politicians whose role in turning the world into a darker and more dangerous place should never be forgotten or forgiven. It is possible to react to atrocity with compassion, empathy, a desire to understand and political scrutiny all at once. Indeed, we have a responsibility to.