Most regulators under-resourced - Our pretend policing is a real cancer

NOW that the initial response to last Monday’s teen-concert massacre in Manchester moves from the “what” and “who” phase to the “why” phase the question that has confounded Europe for decades returns to centre stage: “Why do young men like Salman Abedi — and Paris killers Chérif Kouachi, Saïd Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly — turn so violently against the society that offers them refuge?”

That conversation usually runs into the sand when it reaches the more challenging question: “How can Europe assimilate millions of refugees from cultures often actively hostile to our way of life? Can that process be completed successfully or might it destroy Europe as we know it?”

These are Europe’s Great Questions of the Day but we face an equally pressing question where the answer seems as remote, though it should not be in a functioning Republic: “Why do we tolerate a situation where nearly every regulatory agency or law, established to protect citizens’ interests, is so under-resourced or feeble that they are absolutely incapable of achieving those objectives?”