PRINCE CHARLES did well, coupling his visit to Jordan, still reeling with disgust and horror at the burning alive of one of its pilots by the barbaric Isis, with a warning about the danger of violent Islamism back here.

He told the BBC: “This is one of the greatest worries I think, and the extent to which it is happening is the alarming part. And particularly in a country like ours where you know the values we hold dear. You think that the people who come here, were born here, go to school here, would abide by those values and outlooks.”

Yes, an admirable alert. But the Prince is already one step behind this particular ball. Overshadowed by militant Islamism, the Prince’s target, is an arguably worse, certainly more distressing, threat. To face and overcome this we need to examine, and take a grip on, our own consciences.

Published last week, a survey by the polling company YouGov found that nearly half (45 per cent) of 3,400 people questioned believed that at least one of several anti-Semitic views presented to them, including the claim that “Jews chase money more than other people,” was “definitely or probably true”. Coincidentally, a separate poll, by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, has discovered that more than half of British Jews believe anti-Semitism here is beginning to echo the notorious anti-Jewish sentiment across Europe in the 1930s.

This troubling picture seems confirmed by new figures showing that the number of documented anti-Semitic incidents last year more than doubled, to 1,168, compared with 2013.

How has this come about? Hard to say, but the fears of the Jewish community are real and deep. The Daily Telegraph has highlighted the story of a Manchester family - businessman husband, wife in marketing, two teenage kids – who are upping sticks and moving to the US. The wife said: “The other week I was in a supermarket queue when the man in front of me said: ‘F***ing Jews, they’re all over the place. They’re thieves, they are taking our property’… I was absolutely terrified and fled.”

She continued: “I know there are plenty of people who simply want to live a peaceful co-existence. But there is so much anti-Semitism in Britain, and it is coming from all sides. Our local Jewish schools look like prison camps. There are patrolling guards, some with dogs. I don’t want to sit at home panicking when my husband goes to the synagogue.” So the family, strongly rooted in Manchester, where the husband was born, is shifting to Phoenix, Arizona, home to more than 100,000 Jews.

Truly, this should ring alarm bells. High among the values that Prince Charles says we “hold dear” is tolerance and respect for others, including those of different faiths. Against the near-constant re-iteration of "never again" throughout the threequarters of a century since the Holocaust, the presence of this simmering prejudice against Jews, looking dangerously like coming to the boil, could hardly be more disturbing.

Meeting Christian refugees from Iraq, Prince Charles observed: “This is what I think must be the worst of horrors, when all the people you have lived with, side by side, and have always been friendly, suddenly totally change.” Every one of us needs to guard against that here.