European cities are likely to become permanent no-go areas for women if the mass sex attacks in Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Helsinki on New Year’s Eve are ever repeated.

Authorities in Germany are being blamed for playing down the attacks because of the strong possibility that the thousand or so attackers in Cologne, said to look “of North African or Arab appearance” by the police, were part of the 1.1 million asylum seekers given sanctuary in Germany. Unusually the full picture of the attacks did not emerge in the German media for five days afterwards, leading to accusations of a press cover-up for political correctness.

It is not racist to accept that respect for women is not a part of the culture of every race, a hard lesson we learned here over Rotherham. The question is how tolerant of this difference all countries are prepared to be when the personal safety of its girls and women is so clearly compromised by it.