Let's just get one thing straight, shall we? Rabble-rouser, troublemaker, and all-round pain in the backside asylum seeker Hamit Coskun was not fined £240 by magistrates for blasphemy. He was convicted because he effed and blinded in the street at the top of his voice, and started a fire on the pavement.

That's a breach of the peace in anyone's book. A proper public order offence. If you go around screaming foul language and starting fires where law-abiding people are trying to go about their business, you're going to get nicked. And so you should be.

Yes, the material Coskun set ablaze was a copy of the Quran. Yes, he was specifically swearing at the Muslim faith. "F*** Islam!" his charming rant of choice.

Yes, he had planted himself directly outside the Turkish Consulate in Knightsbridge (Mr Coskun fled Turkey two-and-a-half years ago and now seeks asylum here). Yes, he is a committed atheist.

So what? I'm a committed atheist, too. I don't go around burning holy books in public. There are lots of regimes I detest. But I don't stand outside, say, the Iranian Embassy shouting abuse liberally sprinkled with four-letter words.

Coskun, and his misguided supporters, claim he was prosecuted under blasphemy laws being revived by the back door. This is tripe. Just read what Coskun said following his guilty verdict.

"Christian blasphemy laws were repealed in this country more than 15 years ago. Would I have been prosecuted if I'd set fire to a copy of the Bible outside Westminster Abbey?"

Well, a rhetorical question deserves an answer. So here it is, Mr Coskun.

Of course you would!

Not for blasphemy, you self-serving fool, but for breach of the peace, public disorder, and possibly threatening behaviour. If you seriously believe that yelling: "F*** Christianity!" and starting a fire on a major tourist thoroughfare wouldn't get you arrested, you're deluded.

Tory leader called this one completely wrong on Monday when she said: "De facto blasphemy laws will set this country on the road to ruin. Freedom of speech, and freedom not to believe, are inalienable rights in Britain."

Yes, they would and, er, yes, they are, Ms Badenoch. But those self-evident truths simply do not apply in this case.

Hamit Coskun is a public nuisance, pure and simple, and was summarily dealt with as such by the courts. I think the Tory leader has other, more pressing concerns right now, don't you?

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I want to revive a longdefunct word here today. It's a c-word, and was in common use up until around WW2. "Cad". I think "cad" perfectly sums up the swine who went on a date with TV presenter Katie Piper.

She told this week how she was left to pay an expensive restaurant bill by a man who walked out on her after seeing her facial injuries (caused in an acid attack years before).

AFTER ordering, he pretended to have seen friends across the room and went "just to say a quick hi to them". He never came back. Katie (who of course is beautiful) was left to pay the bill.

Cad? Actually I can think of another word, but it's unprintable here.

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I hope with all my heart that the German police, currently finishing a search of Portuguese scrubland close to where Madeleine McCann was abducted 18 years ago, have found the clues they are looking for.

Not least for the little girl's parents, Kate and Gerry, enduring what must feel like an eternity of uncertainty and grief since the dreadful evening their beloved child vanished.

And on that point - here's something else I wish for. That there's a special place in Hades reserved for the trolls and poison-pen merchants who have pursued and tormented the couple ever since, with their mad, twisted conspiracy theories and accusations and sadistic psychological abuse.

For the record, I have visited the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz where the McCanns were staying back in May 2007. The spot where Kate and Gerry took their evening meal outside while their daughter slept inside was as close to her room as if they were eating in their own back garden at home. Those poor parents did NOTHING wrong. Unlike their repulsive tormentors.