THE concept of ‘hate crime’ continues to be flavour of the month among politicians and lobbyists from Dorset to Westminster.

Perhaps the most important question is why we are apparently so content to cede judgement on this issue to the state in the first place.

There are not many other circumstances in which a person’s honestly expressed opinion, however abhorrent a decent and tolerant citizen might find it (subjective I know), is deemed to warrant suppression by the law.

The truth is that there is no benign state censorship, whether of the spoken or written word. Those who advocate it will generally come to regret their naivety.

Readers will no doubt be familiar with the peculiar case in Northern Ireland in recent months, which saw a bakery judged under provincial law to have discriminated against a gay couple by refusing to ice a pro-gay marriage slogan on a cake.

The veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell had originally supported the court’s decision in this matter, but later publicly changed his mind with admirable candour.

The same ruling, he reasoned, could be used to compel by threat of legal punishment a gay couple to ice an anti-gay marriage message on a cake.

Thus the state’s attempt to stop the Christian bakery expressing their view, namely that they would not ice a cake with what they considered a ‘sinful’ message, would lead inevitably to further censorship of those on the other side of the debate.

And all because, it seems, we lack the courage or power to resolve or acknowledge these differences without calling on our heavy-handed nanny to intervene.

There are sound grounds for legal recourse, clearly making false accusations about a person must be challengeable.

But in such a case the state acts as arbiter, not prosecutor. Defamation is a civil offence, the state determines which party can on the balance of probability claim a legitimate grievance, and costs are awarded accordingly.

Hate speech and hate crime is considered to be a criminal matter.

Of course another effect of all this censorship is to foster the very phenomenon it seeks to prevent - discord and intolerance.

Stopping someone saying something doesn’t stop them thinking it. But more significantly, the criminalisation of opinions naturally leads to a perception of a high rate of crime.

This column has previously accounted how the recent rise in reported hate crimes in Dorset may not mean all that much in reality.

Figures from Dorset Police suggested the number of such offences had doubled in the quarter following the Brexit vote last year, although the recorded offences were of course only reported - by one party involved - as being in the hate crimes category, and these were not convictions.

But in reading such figures, in reading the headline ‘hate crime is up’, would not those who rightly or wrongly believe their identity is a target for hatred in some fashion be fearful? And might they not in turn come to harbour a grudge against their fellow citizens, seeing a slight in every aside, and reproach in every glance?

Do we really need this dubious protection from the opinions of other people?

Of course, let the full force of the law be used against those by whose actions another citizen has come to harm, but hurt feelings and offence-taking are not sufficient justification.

In the course of researching antisemitism for a report next week, this writer was heartened on speaking with Rabbi Maurice Michaels of Bournemouth Reform Synagogue, who praised the town’s friendly atmosphere.

Mr Michaels said the few occasional incidents caused by a small number of people were “a situation we have to live with”.

Is this not the very definition of tolerance?