He must have known it wasn't true but it served its purpose in providing Blair-Gets-Tough headlines for a day or so. When nine Afghans hijacked a plane and took it to Stansted, tough-talking Jack Straw similarly promised they would be sent back to Afghanistan. They are still here, living on benefits of all kinds. Legal costs alone exceeded £200,000.

Since then, the parade of criminals and terrorists winning a right to live here has gone on. The human rights industry is no longer protecting us, if it ever did. Now it is a threat to our safety.

This month, a terrorist who was part of the gang which took 26 hostages during the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 was in the news. For nearly 30 years, he has been costing us a fortune to keep him in jail. So is now the moment to send him back to Iran? Wrong. He cannot be deported because Iran has the death penalty.

Abu Qatada, Osama bin Laden's ambassador in Europe, was allowed to live here, despite being described by the courts as "truly dangerous". He cannot be sent back to Jordan because he might not get "a fair trial".

Just last week, an illegal immigrant who killed a gifted young writer by driving into her at 60mph in an unlicensed, uninsured car was granted the right to live here after his release from jail. A court ruled that deporting him to Pakistan would breach the human rights of his family because his newly-acquired British wife might not be able to get a job, and might face hostility because he is a Christian.

Human-rights lunacy is invading every part of our lives. The serial killer Dennis Nilsen won the right to have hardcore porn magazines in his cell. Previously he had been allowed only soft-porn magazines, which was clearly an infringement of his human rights. So the crazy cavalcade goes on, year after year, with no sign of anything being done to halt it. Human rights lawyers will make certain that the gravy train stays on the rails.

When Labour's Human Rights Bill was introduced in 1997, a critic described it as "a field day for crackpots, a pain in the neck for judges, and a gold mine for lawyers". Spot on.



THE commander of the SAS troops in Afghanistan has resigned because of the Government's "gross negligence" in forcing them to use the notoriously vulnerable Snatch Land Rovers.

The first female soldier to die in Afghanistan, Corporal Sarah Bryant, died, along with three SAS colleagues, when their Snatch was blown up by a Taliban bomb. Last week defence equipment minister Quentin Davies, who was an arrogant oaf when he sat on the Tory benches and remains so today, said commanders probably "chose the wrong piece of equipment." In fact, they had no choice at all.

The SAS has been pleading for years not to be sent out in what it called "mobile coffins". Repeated demands for more helicopters also fell on deaf ears. The Paras had to go out on patrol against the Taliban lacking sufficient night-vision devices.

The present Defence Secretary, John Hutton, is an honourable man, doing his best to remedy the deficiencies and £700m is being belatedly spent on 760 mine-resistant vehicles.

But let there be no doubt where the blame lies – with Gordon Brown in his years as Chancellor, when he starved the Armed Forces of funds. The blood of these brave soldiers is on his hands.



ANYONE who failed to be moved by the sight of tears streaming down the faces of elderly black voters in America must be totally lacking in heart. But Barack Obama's triumph was about much more than race.

His immediate task is to face the terrifying economic problems. His long-term aim must be to restore America's good name in the world. To anyone who admires the United States, it seems bizarre that it should have become an object of hate, conjuring up visions of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib instead of all the fine traditions and cultural riches that America offers.

I do not really blame George W Bush: he came to office naive and inexperienced. Instead of listening to wise advice from Colin Powell and other sane voices, he came under the influence of Vice-President
Cheney and the nest of the neo-cons who have created such mayhem in the world. They are the real villains, and the damage they have inflicted on America's reputation will take years to heal.



"I AM not a member of the Royal Family," says the Duchess of York. Why then is she so eager to flaunt her title?

She has caused a diplomatic incident with Turkey by an undercover investigation of children's institutions, accompanied, of course, by a television camera. Does she think any television company would use her unless it was treating her as a member of the Royal Family? The same went for a programme in Hull, supposedly teaching a family how to live frugally (something she doesn't have to face).

She was accompanied by her two daughters, who are usually more at home in nightclubs. One of them, Princess Eugenie, said: "Mummy always says that me and Beatrice share her with the world's children." Lucky world's children.