By Richard Littlejohn    July 2005

 

You couldn't make it up. Days after the carnage in London, it is revealed that the police are sponsoring a Muslim extremist who supports terrorism.

Between them, the Met and the Association of Chief Police Officers are donating £9,000 to a conference starring Swiss-based fanatic Tariq Ramadan at the Islamic Cultural Centre, near Regent's Park.

Ramadan is banned from America by the Homeland Security Agency after a speech in which he justified suicide bombing.

Yet the poilce think he's a fit person to, preach to young Muslims, in the aftermath of a terrorist atrocity in our capital city.

Admittedly, they didn't know that Islamonazi nutters were going to slaughter London commuters last Thursday when Ramadan-a-ding-dong was booked for the gig. But that's not the point. Our closest ally says he's a danger. Shouldn't that set some alarm bells ringing?

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We are not aware of the grounds on which Professor Ramadan was prevented from entering the US." Well they damn well should be. Post 9/11, aren't our intelligence services and police supposed to be in constant contact with their opposite numbers in the USA and Europe?

If Ramadan is considered too much of a menace to be allowed in to America, aren't the British authorities just the teensiest bit curious as to why? It's not as if he's one of Donald Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns. He's got plenty of form.

Despite that, not only is he allowed into Britain but the British taxpayer, through the Old Bill, is picking up his exes.

I'm all for conferences which examine ways of reconciling different faiths and communities. But the charity behind this month's gabfest is the same one which last year invited Red Ken's friend Mustapha Jihad lo London, so he could share with us his enlightened views on suicide bombing, Jew-baiting, poof-burning and wife-beating.

It turns out that the Old Bill chipped in for that visit, too.

At this stage it is worth remembering that ACPO doesn't actually have any money of its own. It is our money. And it shouldn't be spent bankrolling lecture tours by Islamist rabble-rousers.

I wonder what those brave, dedicated officers who have spent the past few days sifting through corpses on the Underground make of their bosses' benevolence.

Where the hell does ACPO get the idea that paying for fanatics to address conferences in London is any part of its brief?

There's far too much appeasement in the name of multiculturalism and diversity.

Although I was one of Ian Blair's most vociferous critics when he was scaling the greasy pole to succeed Lord Beaujolais as Commissioner of the Met, I've been prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt since he took over. Judge him on what he does, not job application, was my reasoning.

Since then, I'm afraid, the jury is not so much out as relaxing in the Magpie and Stump with a pork pie and a White Shield Worthington having returned a swift guilty verdict.

I'm reluctant to have a pop at the police after the magnificent way they responded to last Thursday's bombings.

But they didn't see it coming. And neither did the security services. That's not necessarily their fault and I'm not sure it could have been prevented.

However, there is always the worry that because of Commissioner Blair's obsession with diversity – fully encouraged by the Home Office and Downing Street – some stones are going unturned for fear of upsetting the "community".

The law has been too soft on Islamist hatemongers. It's not that long ago that the police were closing roads in Finsbury Park so that Captain Hook could peddle his venomous sermons to a congregation of sinister youths in Yasser Arafat headscarves.

Bunging nine grand to a conference starring a man barred from the USA for justifying terrorism defies belief. Whatever next? Are we going to have S019 offering firearms training at Hendon to would-be jihadists? How about the anti-terrorist squad organising a few bomb-making classes for beginners.

In the wake of the attacks on London, virtually all of us agree what must be done. Radical mosques must be shut down, Islamonazi "clerics" interned or deported, illegal immigrants rounded up and kicked, out, the "human rights" act repealed, our borders secured and undesirables refused entry.

Don't kid yourself. It ain't gonna happen.

What chance have we got when the police – the POLICE – are not only rolling out the red carpet for advocates of terrorism but actually paying for them to come here as honoured guests?

When Ian Blair said he wanted to recruit more Muslims, I thought he was talking about the police, not al-Qaeda.