THE news from Jonathan Evans, Head of MI5 regarding the threat from Somalia (Echo, Sept 17) is absolutely devastating to those misguided souls who believe that in the long run we can win the war against Islamic extremism by having boots on the ground in far flung places.

We can’t, and many more brave young men will be sacrificed in Afghanistan before the penny drops.

The problem is that in order to confront the madmen here, we will have to take steps that offend those politically correct commentators who seem to be influencing Government policy.

How I long for a beefed up version of French President Sarkozy running the show, who has the guts to put British people first and remove unsavoury elements back to their country of origin.

This, of course, won’t solve the problem of indigenous or “homegrown”

terrorists and again we need to have the courage to put them away for a very long time before they commit atrocities.

The intercept laws have to be changed so that phone evidence is acceptable in court. And the judges themselves must be told in no uncertain terms that national security has precedence over EU law.

I won’t hold my breath.

David Lacey, Durham.