By Matt Hill

On Friday, the UK followed the lead of Mubarak’s former ally the US, in withdrawing its support only when it became clear it was backing the wrong camel. Leaders and opinion-makers in Israel were even less enthusiastic about the protests: freedom and democracy are all well and good, they seemed to say, so long as they don’t expect to move in next door.

Westminster has been besotted with the concept of the community organiser, ever since former organiser Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. However, politicians risk ignoring a long British tradition of community development, embedded in communities across the UK and now under threat as local authority cuts begin to bite; here, Nick Beddow, chief executive of charity CDX (Community Development Exchange), sounds some warnings on how the big society could make matters worse, rather than better.

By Ahsan Butt

I implore you to watch this recent Glenn Beck clip (via the Daily Dish). We learn the following things (none of these are exaggerations, he actually says each of these things):

By Indigo Jo

This weekend the so-called English Defence League held a “homecoming” march in Luton, the town where a small group of al-Muhajiroun held a noisy rally against a homecoming parade by a regiment of soldiers recently back from Afghanistan and got much more publicity than they deserved, prompting the formation of one of the EDL’s precursors. Suzanne Moore’s piece in the Guardian offers a convenient litany of middle-class liberals sneering at members of the EDL as racists, hooligans and “stupid men in casual sportswear” and suggested that the “chattering classes” watched Stephen Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson’s performance on Newsnight last Tuesday and smugly “amused themselves by commenting on his chavdom”.

By Tehmina Kazi

The assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer is a wake-up call for anyone who doubted the virulence of Pakistan’s fanatics, or the fact that their influence has seeped into movements that are not normally associated with violence. Instead of being aligned with the usual suspects, Taseer’s killer Mumtaz Qadri was a member of Dawat-e-Islami, a movement which is characterised by missionary work and claims to be apolitical.

The democratic mobilisations in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere are lighting a beacon across the middle east and north Africa. The way ahead lies through peaceful protest against extremism and authoritarianism, say Foulath Hadid and Mishana Hosseinioun.