Just after a quarter past eight on Wednesday night, Sky’s reporter on the spot in Birmingham checked his watch and announced: ‘The far-Right are 15 minutes late.’

Apparently, the riot was supposed to start at 8pm sharp, but rather inconsiderately those pesky fascists hadn’t bothered to turn up.

Behind him were hundreds of ‘counter-demonstrators’, some of them masked, wearing intifada scarves and waving Palestinian flags. The big problem was that they hadn’t got anyone to counter.

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Counter-protesters, some in masks and Palestinian scarves, in Southend

It was the same story around the country, from London to Liverpool. The threatened ‘far-Right’ thuggery failed to materialise.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but I detected a marked sense of disappointment that the evening was about to pass with little or no violence.

Television correspondents were left to amuse themselves playing ‘far-Right’ bingo, seeing how many times they could slip the catch-all slur into their pieces to camera.

Curiously, none of them referred to the so-called counter-demonstrators as ‘far-Left’, even though Socialist Workers Party placards were on prominent display, as usual. They were variously described sympathetically as ‘anti-fascists’, ‘anti-racists’ or simply the ‘community’.

Yes, there were plenty of decent, concerned citizens out there. But the SWP boot boys are the flipside of the same coin as the ‘far-Right’ football hooligans who brought terror to the streets of Southport and beyond over the past week. They have been central to violent disorder in London and elsewhere over the years, including the poll tax and Black Lives Matter protests.

Fortunately, on Wednesday night they had no one to fight, although that didn’t stop ‘anti-racists’ in Finchley, at the heart of London’s Jewish community, chanting anti-Semitic slogans.

You can bet your bottom dollar that many of those ‘counter protesters’ on the streets of North London this week have also been taking part in the menacing pro-Palestine/Hamas marches.

Let me stress yet again that I have nothing but the deepest contempt for the thugs who attacked mosques and asylum hotels in the wake of the shocking murder of three young girls in Southport last week.

As I wrote on Tuesday, they should be clubbed like baby seals, dragged before the courts and given exemplary sentences. The police and courts have acted with commendable speed to arrest and punish those responsible.

I also have huge admiration for the front-line coppers who risk life and limb keeping the streets safe.

Having said that, however, there was obviously a serious failure of intelligence, however it happened, which led to police warning of up to 100 separate ‘far-Right’ disturbances.

Mercifully, none of it materialised, but people were rightly frightened. It was a good night for B&Q and other timber merchants as businesses were boarded up like Key West bars in advance of a tropical hurricane.

Met Commissioner Mark Rowley praised his officers for keeping the lid on any potential violence. But he then went on to praise the ‘unity of the communities’ for scaring off the ‘extreme Right’ threat.

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A counter-protest crowd outside Waltham Forest Immigration Bureau in east London

It was unsettling to hear him thanking the ‘community’, especially as Government ministers had spent the day advising people to stay at home and avoid any potential confrontation.

What if the fabled ‘far-Right’ had turned out in large numbers? There would have been ugly scenes, particularly with so many masked members of the far-Left in attendance, bristling for a bundle.

It was also strange to hear Rowley apparently siding with the SWP which, ever since the deranged BLM protests, has been campaigning to ‘defund the police’. Those accusations of Two-Tier policing won’t go away any time soon, particularly in light of the softly-softly treatment of the Muslim mob which attacked a pub and menaced a female journalist in Birmingham this week.

But I have nothing but praise for the clampdown on the morons who took part in the past week’s disturbances in Southport and elsewhere.

Again, let me emphasise that what sickens me is the way in which the appalling murder of three innocent little girls at a Taylor Swift dance class has been cynically politicised and exploited, primarily by the sewer of social media and increasingly-irresponsible rolling news channels but also by far-Right and far-Left extremists and politicians anxious to press their own agenda.

Something called Telegram carried the reports that 100-odd riots were being planned on Wednesday. While free speech must be protected, there has to be some sanction against social media platforms which spread fake news and alarm.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but happily the ‘far-Right’ didn’t turn up, not even 15 minutes late.

Let’s hope it stays that way. The families of those tragic little girls deserve better than the hysteria of the past week.

A cornucopia of wildlife stories for Gary to get his teeth into today. A runaway wallaby has been spotted on a golf course in Nottinghamshire. Nobody is quite sure where it came from but it is believed to play off a handicap of 12.

Elsewhere, plans by a financier to extend his Wiltshire estate are being hindered by possible presence of great crested newts, a protected species. The council is insisting on a site-wide search for amphibians before building work can begin.

Another project, a £6 million road scheme in Sittingbourne, Kent, is being held up after a dormouse nest was discovered. I’m reminded of the famous dormice bridge installed over the Pontypridd bypass in South Wales, which cost £190,000 and fell down during Storm Imogen in 2016.

Meanwhile, a scientist at Sussex University claims that the best way to stop seagulls nicking your chips is to stare at them. I’ve heard of The Men Who Stare At Goats, but this is ridiculous. Especially as it was reported recently that gulls are getting drunk after eating insects which give off a toxin that leaves them intoxicated.

I think I’ll give that one a miss.

Who wants to be dive-bombed by a drunken seagull screeching: ‘Are you looking at my bird?’

Mark Adams, the official at the centre of the Olympics boxing gender row, turns out to have been one of Keir Starmer’s best men at his marriage to Queen Vic.

One of? Who has four best men? Barristers, I suppose. KCs often turn up in court with Huey, Louie and Dewey juniors in tow. That might explain, too, Starmer’s enthusiasm for the bloated public sector, where four civil servants working from home are always better than one.

Ice cream made from horses’ milk may soon be on sale. Polish researchers have developed a formula which should suit people who are allergic to dairy. It is said to be creamy and has a slightly coarse texture. Call me old-fashioned, but how do you milk a horse?