PETER HITCHENS: Shamima Begum's latest court blow proves one thing: She is ... trends now

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You may think I am pretty bad now, but you should have seen me when I was 15. I said, did and thought terrible things, which are now hateful to me. The memory of them is pretty much unbearable. I can still shudder at the remembrance of them. But there it is, nasty actions once done cannot be undone, cruel words cannot be cancelled.

Perhaps everyone else is so much better than this, and so pure in heart, that they do not think there is something a bit merciless about the British State’s vindictive treatment of Shamima Begum. I agree with everyone else, especially my colleague Sue Reid, that her behaviour was idiotic and that she said and did things which she will be ashamed of until the end of her life.

Meanwhile I would think that the deaths of her three infant children, something none of us would wish on anyone, should be punishment enough for anybody.

I don’t like the look or sound of her. I suspect her basic problem is that she is not very bright. I hope never to meet her. But if anyone has any evidence that she committed a crime, then let them accuse her of it in a court of law, before an impartial jury. And if she is then found guilty I will cheerfully support the punishment she is awarded according to law.

But this cannot happen, as long as she is condemned to spend the rest of her life in some Syrian slum. 

This is thanks to a cancellation of her citizenship, which reminds me of the thuggish old Soviet Union at its worst, a despotic Third World measure which this ancient civilisation should be ashamed of wielding. Today, Begum suffered another blow as she lost an initial bid to challenge this cancellation at the Supreme Court.