Let’s give them our tired, our poor, our bearded terrorists

I realise that some of you, the spineless liberals, will already be arguing that such an approach is perhaps inconsistent with modern democratic rights and freedoms, and that it would mean that Everton’s goalkeeper Tim Howard, for example, would be incarcerated, along with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Well, sure. I take your point.

But even you liberals, if you’re still reading this, must agree that, given what subsequently happened with Naseer, we surely need a middle way. A middle way between my somewhat fascistic, beardist approach and the sort of thing that pertains now in the UK. The stuff that happens time after time with Islamist lunatics. Our utter impotence when faced with people who seriously want us all dead.

The police swooped on Naseer — and a bunch of similarly bearded Pakistani maniacs — because they thought he was about to unleash carnage in Manchester. He had told the authorities he was at a college in the northwest that did not actually exist. He was in regular contact with an al-Qaeda operative back in good ol’ Pakistan. He told the Old Bill that his coded discussions with al-Qaeda were simply an attempt to find a nice girlfriend. Yes, al-Qaeda as an internet dating site; you really ought to try it (just don’t put “GSOH” — it doesn’t appeal to the jihadist babes).

There was plenty of evidence to try this savage but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided against it, and so he was let loose on the streets of Manchester, with his mates.

The police were — and still are — furious at this lack of resolve from the CPS, and one retired detective chief inspector suggested that lives were put at risk as a consequence. The chief constable of Greater Manchester, Sir Peter Fahy, has echoed this sentiment.

But what happened next with old Abid defies belief, frankly. We tried to deport him back to Pakistan because we knew he was a terrorist. This was a second-best solution to the problem, given that the CPS — so rigorous when prosecuting 80-year-old celebs for questionable sexual offences decades before — was reluctant to proceed.

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission announced it was “satisfied” Naseer was planning an imminent attack on this country and was, all in all, a dangerous al-Qaeda operative and probably not the sort of person you would care to take to dinner at The Ivy.

Yet it was decided that he couldn’t be deported because he might have a bit of a rough time of it back in Pakistan — he might be hurt by the authorities there, insofar as they have authorities there. That vague fear trumped all other considerations, including the safety of the people of Manchester. I would suggest that this is an incredible adjudication and counter to our interests.

Naseer has now been convicted in a New York court and will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars. We were less worried about extraditing him to the US than we were about prosecuting him, for reasons of expediency and, frankly, cowardice.

Human rights legislation, domestic and from Europe, has hamstrung our abilities to cope with these vile people. I call for a middle way; the American way.

@Gliese581d calling

A mysterious noise is apparently emanating from a planet some 22 light years away, and scientists are getting very excited.

The planet is called Gliese 581d, although I believe that its querulous and whining inhabitants find this name demeaning and offensive. “The number 581 is bad enough, but they wouldn’t even call us 581a — it had to be d. How do you think that makes us feel? It’s cultural imperialism,” a shrill spokeswoman from a left-of-centre Gliesian NGO told me yesterday, spittle dripping from her strange and bulbous purple lips.

The electronic signals we are receiving are almost certainly millions and millions of Gliesian imbeciles tweeting one another, or sending selfie snapshots of their weird genitals hither and thither across the planet’s rocky surface. Let’s leave them to it, huh?

Beware women bearing clipboards

Men are generally vile, whereas women are sort of quite nice, according to a new survey carried out by a woman.

Emily Grijalva, from the University at Buffalo in New York state, reports that men are narcissistic, unethical, aggressive, unable to form long-term relationships and are also useless at taking the bins out, although this last point was not reported in her survey. Women, meanwhile, are sugar and spice and all things nice.

Thanks for that, Em.

Next week, a longitudinal survey of how awful cats are — stupid, psychopathic, greedy, sexually deviant — presented by the eminent sociologists, professors Rover and Spot.

A dry night for the owl fanciers

More trouble for London’s owl bar, a place where people can enjoy a pleasant drink in the company of several nocturnal avian predators.

Last week my colleague, India Knight, was horribly snidey about the proposed bar and those who would use it. What India doesn’t understand is that many folk, like me, find it impossible to relax in a social setting unless they are surrounded by owls. We find their presence reassuring, especially when they do the swooping and hooting thing.

My own preference is for the giant scops owl, with its haunting cry of “wuah, wuah” — but these creatures are scarce and I am more than happy to make do with the common or garden tawny owl. I am not a demanding person.

Yet now the bar has caved in to pressure from the sneering likes of India Knight and has banned from the premises not owls but alcohol. That’s no good for me. I need both ingredients to feel properly contented — owl plus alcohol.

Too much information

According to advice from the University of Georgia, students should have sex only if consent is a “voluntary, sober, imaginative, enthusiastic, creative, wanted, informed, mutual, honest, and verbal agreement”.

Good lord. I don’t think I’ve ever had sex that accorded with all of those stipulations. I’ve certainly never had imaginative sex — and to be honest “enthusiastic” is pushing it, so to speak. I have had creative sex on three occasions, as my children will retrospectively attest, but have you ever had “informed” sex? What does that mean?

Over here, meanwhile, the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, has decided that having sex while drunk is effectively against the law and could result in a rape charge.

As nobody would have sex with me while sober, a lifetime of celibacy awaits.