Results tagged “terrorists” from Birmingham Post - News Blog

After a long painstakingly laborious investigation lasting years and involving a whole range of coordinated surveillance activities with the cooperation from a number of agencies at home and abroad - you've managed to track down a dangerous, deluded individual who is a threat to our national security and the safety of British people. He's also one of the top men in an infamous terrorist network which the allied forces are trying to infiltrate and destroy.

He goes to court and is convicted of recruiting young political extremists and plotting terrorist activities all over Europe. You want him locked up, the police want him locked up, the government and indeed, parliament want him locked up.

Would you be a little miffed, therefore, if your Court of Appeal decided that this man not only must be let out in the community but cannot be deported to his home country lest he should be tortured? Wouldn't you think that the safety of our country with 60 odd million people should take precedent over the safety of a potential mass murderer who - given the chance - is willing to kill innocent British people going about their ordinary business? Wouldn't you also think that your senior judges in their infinite wisdom would uphold the importance of your safety as an innocent law-abiding servant before the safety of a convicted foreign terrorist to whom you - very likely - are a prime target?

Well, not really.

But this weekend we've learnt that, within a couple of days of each other, another top secret file has been found left carelessly on a train - apparently on the same service but going in the opposite direction.

You couldn't make it up, could you? I mean, if John Le Carre included something like this in one of his novels, you'd think how implausible! A civil servant or a government official leaving valuable documents on public transport? No way.

But that's exactly what's happened.

I've met a few people of note in my time as a journalist. Heads of state. Sporting heroes. Dames and Knights of the Realm. Religious leaders. Celebs. But none have impressed me as much as Maureen Mitchell.

I was reading a book review of Sebastian Faulks' 'Devil May Care'. Of course, as you know he's the celebrated author of 'Birdsong' and, in 2007 was commissioned to write the thirty-sixth 'Ian Fleming' novel. It was published only last week to mark the 100th anniversary of Fleming's birth.

To be honest, I haven't bought it - yet - but apparently, 'Devil May Care', a continuity of 'The Man With The Golden Gun', is set in 1967.

Despite the fact that as usual the adventure takes our most famous MI5 spy to - I presume - numerous exotic locations abroad, there's a part of me that thinks the topic of Cold War is all - well - a bit out-dated.

Would it not have been a bit more topical to focus the readers' attention on our volitile world today?

It's amazing what tosh you'll hear on the radio when there's a lull in the news...

This afternoon, for instance, there was a woman, the editor of Dogs Today (yes, a real publication for canine enthusiasts), making the case that it's more hygienic to sleep with your pet dogs than it is to sleep with a partner.

God knows where they get these crack-pots - surely it can't be easy?

Or is it?