All of us, of whatever political persuasion, must surely be appalled at the seemingly random, nasty attacks on the Prime Minister's property. Coming hot on the heels of the murder of two MPs in the last decade, this assault demonstrates yet again how violence against our elected representatives is now common and insidious. Keir Starmer is the latest victim, but MPs of all parties experience threats, hostility and physical attacks. It's horrific and inexcusable.

But we must also ask why the authorities are treating the events this week so differently from others, and why they have been as keen as mustard and as quick as a flash to make a possible link to terrorism and "hostile states". What a contrast with their approach to the far more heinous and lethal Southport attacks last year, when they were indecently hasty to rule terrorism out of their enquiries at the earliest stage. This was especially odd and tough to fathom given that the key suspect, Axel Rudakubana, had a chemical weapon in his home and an al-Qaeda training manual.

The authorities later said they didn't release that information to the public for fear of prejudicing a trial and indeed no terror motive was found during the investigation of Rudakubana. But the authorities are apparently willing to prejudice any future trial in the case of the Prime Minister's house. Go figure.

We keep being told that any notion of two-tier policing and two-tier justice is a fiction - the domain of conspiracy theorists and an over-excited, right-of-centre imagination.

But is it really? Was it really wise or even possible for the police to categorically rule out terrorism in Southport so early? Their open-minded response to the assault on the Prime Minister's former home this week suggests it was.

If the attacks on Keir Starmer are indeed found to be the actions of hostile states such as Iran or Russia, then we must be doubly alarmed.

Not only is this an attack on our elected leader (like him or not), but if a hostile state is involved it would act as a warning that Britain is not as far from the front line as we might like to think.

Meanwhile, we would appreciate the authorities starting to treat us as adults, and not as young children whose precious little minds need protecting.

They might think that an inflammation of "community tensions" is a good enough reason to sugar-coat everything. But it simply breaks the bond of trust, making us all sceptical of whatever someone in a position of power tells us. It's not good enough. Full transparency is the best policy. So let's have it, please.