Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, delivers a stark, tough message that much of the Western political class needs to heed:

The fact that the latest suspected terrorist threat involves students should come as no surprise. It is the predictable result of three things: an insatiably violent Islamist ideology; the politically-correct refusal of our political class to admit reality; and the comprehensive neglectfulness of our university authorities. This country has already produced a number of students who have gone on to become jihadist murderers. . . .
Greedy for the extra cash they bring, our universities desperately seek overseas students and often ask no questions when some of them fail to appear for classes. Following the introduction of tougher visa rules in the United States, the number of visas issued to students from Pakistan since 2001 has more than doubled in the UK. The problems that this brings with it are now being displayed. [See Terror plot: Student visa system ‘major loophole in border controls’ and Manchester terror plot’ suspects pictured for first time.] . . . Now the Iranian regime, the world’s largest sponsor of Islamic terror, is funding the very institutions the UK Government says are part of the means of stopping that terror. . . .
[the university system] not only radicalises British students, but says to Pakistani and other foreign students that the most backward ideas of their own societies – in relation to women, non-Muslims, homosexuals and others – are entirely acceptable in Britain [witness the array of militant Islamist speakers and sit-ins on campuses] . . .
Muslim students who don’t care about foreign conflicts are made to feel un-Islamic unless they endlessly whip themselves up into a fury against Israel and America . . .
any aspiring jihadi would . . . find in our universities the ideal place to take cover and, indeed, inspiration. It is why you are more likely to become a terrorist in this country if you have been to university.

Murray concludes, “political correctness may be something that they are willing to fight for, but it is not something that most of us are willing to die for.”