A brainwashed boy – the deadliest weapon ever created

ERIC Pickles, the Communities Secretary, promises a crackdown on councils using "spy cars" to nab illegal parkers. So would this be the same Eric Pickles who promised us a return to weekly bin collections, a resurrection of ancient county names and a dose of "new life" for our struggling high streets?

PERHAPS Mr Pickles's weekly bin collections, "new life" and non-threatening parking controls are already happening in Westmorland, Huntingdonshire, Trumpton and Camberwick Green.

HERE we go again. According to weekend reports, motor-insurance companies are planning to hike their premiums by up to 15 per cent. If you decide to shop around you will find a staggering 120-plus providers all touting crazily for your trade. Motor insurance is so competitive because the profits are astronomical. How much of your premium goes straight into your insurer's advertising budget? If ever an industry cried out for rationalisation or even nationalisation, this is it.

THE longest day which fell on Saturday, should make us a little sad for it marks the beginning of the long, light-diminishing slope towards winter. It also brought the final episode of Wallander (BBC4) as the old cop raged against the darkening mists of Alzheimer's. What a terrific performance by Krister Henriksson . Not many laughs that night.

MICHAEL Fabricant MP tweets light-heartedly that if he were on a chat show with the left-wing columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown he might punch her. But Alibhai-Brown does not do light-hearted. She says Fabricant's tweet demonstrates that Tories "expect people like me to be their ayah (nursemaid) wiping their bottoms or selling them cigarettes in the corner shop." Fabricant is a professional irritant and Alibhai-Brown is a professional offence-taker. They are clearly made for each other. So why not settle it toe-to-toe in the ring? My money's on Alibhai-Brown to knock Fabricant's block (or at least his wig) off in the first round. No choking, no gouging, no bottom-wiping.

LOOK into the eager eyes of Nasser Muthana in the Isis guerilla recruitment video and you see a brainwashed kid, the chosen tool of despots and dictators through the centuries. First, lure the boy away from the sanity of home. Next, give him the company of other fired-up young men and a lethal weapon. Then fill his head with some evil creed and tell him that those who don't believe the creed are worthless and deserve to die. He will then do anything you ask him. If he's a 17th century Spanish soldier he'll massacre South American tribes because they are pagans. If he's a 20th century recruit to Hitler's SS he'll machine-gun Jews because he thinks they are sub-human. And if he's a 21st century jihadist in Syria or Iraq he'll slaughter entire Shiah villages because he's been told they're not real Muslims. Muthana believes he is on a great mission to build a better world, just like his Jihadi brothers in Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia and a dozen other benighted lands. But all they are creating is a wasteland, a world which, as we learned a few days ago, now has 50 million refugees, more than at any time since the Second World War. And they are doing it in God's name. As Muthana's broken-hearted father pointed out, the evil men behind this global mayhem never send their own sons into battle. They always send other people's children.

THERE was a truly surreal moment as the Sky website screening of another online jihadist propaganda video was delayed by a commercial for Hilton Hotels. All you infidels are gonna perish in the fires of hell, innit? But not until after the adverts.