Peter Rhodes: Once you're in, you're in

ALL together now. Let's have a chorus of three little words to greet Home Secretary Theresa May's solemn promise that Asian gangs convicted of sex abuse will be stripped of their UK citizenship and expelled from the country: No, they won't.

WHY won't they be deported? Because human-rights law, with its brainless demand that even the wickedest of criminals are entitled to "family life," trumps every other aspect of British law. Every convicted sex abuser can produce a string of smart lawyers to argue that he must be allowed to stay in Britain with his family - even if he hasn't seen a single member of his family for years.

JUST to put Mrs May's pledge in context, it is estimated that two-thirds of failed asylum seekers, including criminals, remain in the UK for at least 10 years after losing their case. Whatever Whitehall says, once you're in, you're in.

FRANK Kelly, the actor who created Father Jack in the series Father Ted, has died. As we heard the bad news, I bet fans everywhere uttered the same four-letter word.

AFTER a shoot in mid-Wales, animal-rights campaigners claim they found a pile of dead pheasants. Far from providing food for the pot, the shooting party stands accused of "target practice with living creatures." Nothing surprises me when townies who love to be seen with tweeds and 12-bore but haven't a clue how to pluck and prepare a pheasant, are let loose on the countryside. I heard of a shoot a couple of years ago when an animal emerged from the hedgerow. "Fox!" yelled an ignorant townie, blasting the poor creature to oblivion. It turned out to be someone's border terrier.

HOW to deal with drones. A friend says she could have used a shotgun the other day when, out of a clear blue sky, a big, commercial-sized drone appeared above her while she was walking down a country lane. It hovered, swivelled its camera at her and came to a standstill no more than 20 feet above her head. She says it was scary and infuriatingly intrusive. While a 12-bore would be useful, I'm tempted to recommend the ancient South American throwing weapon, the bolas. Its three weights connected by cords would wreck a drone pretty damn quick. An old remedy for a modern pest.

WHILE Auntie Beeb is scurrying around looking for ways to save money, may I suggest scrapping Something Understood (Radio 4)? It seems to exist for the sole purpose of irritating the nation early on Sunday mornings. Something Understood allows someone you've never heard of to choose a daft theme and then interpret it with the worst poetry, soppiest music and most irritating, unsubstantiated comments they can find. This week's offering was on the subject of forests and began by assuring us that trees know what it is to be rooted in the soil, yet reaching for the sky. No, they don't; they are trees. If Radio 4 has problems filling half-an-hour on the Sabbath, let's bring back Round the Horne.

SCIENTISTS in China have created sperm cells in mice and believe the same techniques could produce human sperm. Some experts say this brings new hope to infertile men. And others say: "Men, who needs men any more?" Suddenly, I feel like an endangered species.