Take my Dan Brown novel and the terrorists have won

NOW OBVIOUSLY no-one wants to get blown out of the skies en route to Torremolinos, but am I alone in thinking that the government might have over-reacted a little in banning hand baggage and severely restricting what items can be carried onto a plane?

Who in their right mind would stop a parent taking a colouring book onto a 10-hour transatlantic flight? And if there’s a way to bring down a Boeing 747 using a Dan Brown paperback and a copy of the Daily Mail, I think the terrorists might have worked it out by now.

There is one simple answer to this crisis - ban certain people from flying at all. Let them use the ferries and the Eurostar. And to what kind of people do I allude, I hear you ask? Well, we’ve got to be a bit sensitive here, so let’s reinvent Norman Tebbit’s cricket test: Sajid Mahmood wouldn’t get a seat, but Monty Panesar would. Get me?

Now I realize that this is completely unfair on the 99.99 per cent of Muslims (many of them British) who bear no ill will towards this country or towards the Wicked West in general. But when you’ve got the entire holidaymaking population inconvenienced, not to mention hundreds of thousands of business travellers, then something radical has to be done.

If that’s not an option, what about this idea that I found on an internet message board (posted there, no doubt, by a single man who lives with his mum and has a poster of the Starship Enterprise on his bedroom wall): why not tranquilise passengers before take-off and revive them upon landing like they do on Red Dwarf or in the Alien films?

No crap film to suffer, no dreadful food to eat, no seat-back kicking, no whining kids, no being pestered to buy scratch cards and cheap perfume … you just wake up refreshed at your destination. Sounds wonderful.

Of course, there may be safety issues regarding the very young and the very old, but let’s face it, the very young and the very old shouldn’t be on a busy passenger flight in the first place. Well not on mine, anyway.

IN SIMILAR vein, we must take to task Scotland Yard assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, Britain’s most senior Muslim policeman and one of the few top cops who doesn’t seem to be suing for unfair dismissal … at the moment.

Mr Ghaffur, who’s supposed to be implementing the law, complains about stop-and-search procedures that see, in his mind, a disproportionate number of young Asians being pulled over as suspected terrorists.

He moans that his subordinates have “often been led more by people’s physical appearances than by specific intelligence.”

Well it’s hardly rocket science, is it? Again, this discussion requires an element of sensitivity, but how many retired, pipe-smoking, Telegraph-reading, tweed-wearing, 65-year-old white males have committed terrorist outrages in recent years? Is it then any wonder that they breeze blithely past the checkpoints while 20-year-old Asian lads with dodgy beards, baggy trousers and bad attitudes find themselves bending over for the rubber glove?

I’m sorry, but we’re at war here. And the enemy is very clearly amongst us. The problem is in identifying the 0.01 per cent before they do something daft.

OF COURSE, you may dismiss this week’s kerfuffle as nothing more than a government conspiracy. It’s a convenient way of taking the focus off Iraq, Afghanistan and the Lebanon; it justifies increasingly Draconian legislation (which will almost certainly be used against you and me one fine day); and it makes John Reid look a bit dynamic while Tone’s out of the country and Six-Gun Prescott has been sidelined.

You may also think that the Duke of Edinburgh personally murdered Princess Diana, that the moon landings never really happened and that the only way to stop Peter Mandelson crawling into your head at night and eating your brains is to go to bed wearing a tin foil hat.

WHILE TRYING to avoid certain dodgy internet sites – and sights – I stumbled across the official website of the Territorial Army. Detailed on it, for the benefit of those who might fancy a bit of light soldiering, are a number of specialist roles for people to undertake. Most were as expected: artillery, aircrew, engineer, driver: others were more esoteric.

What about lawyer, postman, accountant or laundry worker? No, really. So how many people actually wake up one morning and think: “I want to serve Britain. I’m off to Iraq to scrub gussets for Queen and country.”

No, just as I thought.

I HAVE to bring you the sad news that another of this nation’s fine traditions has been outlawed by the Nanny State – the gentle art of rubbing suncream into a Boy Scout.

Paedo paranoia now means that Cubs and Boy Scouts will in future have to apply their own factor 15 should they get caught camping during a heatwave. Only the in the event of a child being part-incinerated will leaders step forward to hose them down on compassionate grounds.

Now I would normally rail against this as a matter of principle. However, recalling my childhood experiences at the hands of a predatory Akela with a squint and a woggle, I think it’s probably for the best.

Dib dib!

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, or of anyone who writes a satirical column on Friday morning only to find out that the bloody BNP have adopted one of their tongue-in-cheek comments as official policy by lunchtime. As they say, if the cops can keep white, working-class football hooligans from getting flights to Germany ...

In other news, I don't need any smartarse pointing out that "Dib dib" should really be "Dyb dyb", as it's a contraction of "Do your best". OK?