SARAH VINE: Yes, Sir Jim’s language was cack-handed – however is not there some reality in what he mentioned?

A 12-year-old girl is snatched from a park and brutally raped by a 23-year-old small-boat criminal – and what is the Prime Minister most concerned about? The man who did this, an illegal immigrant from Afghanistan? Or another man pointing out, albeit somewhat cack-handedly, a broken system that ultimately allows such savagery to stalk our streets?

Astonishingly, the latter. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire co-owner of Manchester United, last week found himself roundly cancelled and personally reprimanded by Keir Starmer for daring to say what a lot of people increasingly feel: that the UK is being ‘colonised by immigrants’.

‘Offensive and wrong,’ wrote Starmer on X. ‘Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse country. Jim Ratcliffe should apologise.’ Which he duly did. Now, as The Guardian gleefully reports, he may face disciplinary action at the club.

Quite apart from the question of why the Prime Minister is intervening on X about what in essence is a minor question of semantics (doesn’t he have an actual country to run, or is he just miffed that, having once supported Labour, Ratcliffe recently voiced his admiration for Nigel Farage?), was Ratcliffe really all that wrong to use the c-word in the context of illegal immigration?

After all, what is colonisation? We, the British, know better than most. We used to be good at it.

Pitching up on foreign soil, plundering local resources, imposing one’s own moral values, customs, religion and law – very often by violent and oppressive means – and generally attempting to assert control over the existing population was arguably one of the things we did best during the bad old days of Empire.

Of course, that sort of thing is very much frowned upon these days, especially by revisionist liberals, which is probably why they were so triggered by Ratcliffe’s remark. But while his language may not have been entirely appropriate, can anyone truly say that there isn’t an element of truth in what he says?

Wave after wave of mostly illegal migrants, the vast majority young Muslim males with values very different from our own. Is that not a cultural colonisation of sorts?

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire co-owner of Manchester United, last week found himself roundly cancelled for daring to say what a lot of people increasingly feel: that the UK is being ‘colonised by immigrants’

Wave after wave of mostly illegal migrants, the vast majority young Muslim males with values very different from our own

The aforementioned rapist, Ahmad Mulakhil, who failed to show any remorse or regret, is far from unique. Last week alone, we heard from the mother of hotel worker Rhiannon Skye Whyte, who was stabbed 23 times with a screwdriver by Sudanese asylum seeker Deng Chol Majek in a frenzied and unprovoked attack.

We read about Amar Hussein and Walid Saadaoui, jailed for a total of 63 years for planning a massacre on British soil. In chilling footage of a police interview with Hussein, he is filmed expressing his support for ISIS because they are ‘real’ Muslims and ‘make Sharia’.

These are just the most recent examples, but not a week goes by without a similar story, some involving entire communities and institutions. The most glaringly obvious are the Pakistani rape gangs, which operated for years with impunity, shielded by liberal sensibilities but utterly ruthless in their exploitation of white girls.

These groups, the vast majority of whom were Muslim men, believed themselves morally, religiously and culturally superior to their victims, who in their minds were legitimate targets. They believed them wholly dispensable, and did terrible things to them, trapping and enslaving them while placing their own daughters on pedestals.

It doesn’t get more colonial than that. Substitute the gangs for Lord Snooty and his chums, put them in smoke-filled, wood-panelled rooms instead of squalid flats above chip shops and you’ve got yourself a David Olusoga documentary. The truth is, there are two types of migrants, legal or otherwise. Those who come to Britain to escape barbarism and repression in their homelands, or simply because they like what this country represents in terms of cultural and social attitudes and want to be a part of it. And that’s absolutely fine, they are more than welcome as far as I’m concerned.

They are the ones who contribute to the richness of our culture while honouring their own traditions. They don’t try to impose their beliefs, and they certainly don’t engage in violent acts to achieve their aims.

Hotel worker Rhiannon Skye Whyte, was stabbed 23 times with a screwdriver by Sudanese asylum seeker Deng Chol Majek

But there’s also another type, one which is increasingly prevalent, not just here in Britain but in Europe too. Those who seek to bend everyone to their will and who won’t take no for an answer. And they don’t just threaten their hosts, they threaten other migrants too. You see it everywhere, from the ‘globalise the intifada’ bullies to seemingly innocuous things such as banning dogs from parks or pork in schools.

You see it in attempts to justify Female Genital Mutilation as a ‘cultural’ practice, when in truth it is just surgical misogyny. You see it when a Muslim MP stands up in the House of Commons and argues in favour of cousin marriage, even though it produces high numbers of serious birth defects, which, quite apart from causing terrible anguish to the families, costs the NHS a fortune.

You see it in the way whole communities have been saddled with migrant hotels or camps and are suddenly overrun with aggressive young males whose attitudes to girls and women are at best medieval, at worst barbaric. You see it in cases of intolerance such as the Batley schoolteacher drummed out of job and home for showing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad during a class.

Colonialism isn’t always men in uniforms with guns. It can – and does – come in many guises. It can be cultural and religious as well as military, as we’ve seen in countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iran, where hardline Islam has created a sectarian empire of unimaginable evil and cruelty.

Many immigrants are here because they are desperate to escape. But I wonder how many of those look around at today’s Britain and wonder whether the same rot that destroyed their own worlds hasn’t begun to take hold here, infiltrating our institutions and threatening to fundamentally change the way we live.

Hardline Islam makes no secret of its colonialist ambitions, of its desire to establish a global caliphate that will enslave all non-believers. And it doesn’t need an army to achieve its ambition; it just needs enough useful idiots.

Now it seems it’s found them at the very highest levels – in men like Starmer and others. These types are too concerned about causing offence, too worried about a war of words to acknowledge the real threat, and the disturbing truth of what ordinary people see happening on their own doorsteps.

Margot’s no Cathy

Margot Robbie as Cathy in a scene from Wuthering Heights

When I think of Cathy (as in Wuthering Heights), I think of a dark-eyed, dark-haired, mercurial beauty, as described in the book by Emily Bronte. Talented though she is, I’m afraid blonde, blue-eyed Australian surfer chick Margot Robbie just doesn’t do it for me. She was much better suited to play Barbie.

There is something intensely sinister about groups of pro-Palestinian campaigners going around knocking on doors in Brighton and Bristol, demanding that the occupants boycott Jewish businesses. We haven’t seen such open anti-Semitism on British streets since Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts. They must be so proud.

Ilia Malinin of the United States performs a somersault during his routine

I can’t get enough of the Winter Olympics. So much drama! Ilia ‘Quad God’ Malinin driving judges wild with his hair-raising acrobatics in the figure-skating; Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo skiing uphill; our own Matt Weston winning gold in the skeleton; the Canadians allegedly cheating; Sturla Holm Laegreid, who confessed to cheating on his girlfriend… it makes Sky’s ice hockey drama Heated Rivalry look tame.

A judge has ruled that hair loss in women is officially a disability. As a woman who suffers from female pattern baldness, I am in two minds about this. I’m glad the distress it causes has been recognised; on the other hand, losing one’s hair is not the same as losing one’s legs. I don’t want a disabled badge, I just wish doctors would take it more seriously.