Given the headline above you can perhaps see how would-be terrorists would be keen to up their academic credentials. On which topic, I heard Ed Husain on Today this morning repeating the familiar mantra that universities are centres of Islamist recruitment. It was an odd piece, since it seemed to lack any factual peg – except perhaps an op-ed in the Spectator on 4 July. What sloppy stuff.

In an age of mass higher education, university attendance is hardly unusual. Given that Islamist extremists have been recruiting for over a decade, where are the campus-recruited terrorists? Medical school, perhaps? Husain by his own account was radicalized before going into higher education.

Support came from the likely quarter of Anthony Glees trotted out his line on universities, again with no new evidence.

The one example Ed brought forward was a guy whose experience of university had de-radicalized him by exposing him to wider influences. Doh! His claims of hate preaching at SOAS were equally unsupported. Evidence Ed! It is all about evidence.

But evidence requires money and time. Quicker to give a guy a soapbox…it’s a pity. Still, Universities minister Bill Rammell marched us down the hill later on.

Husain’s own book, incidentally, is an object lesson in how feeble violent Islamism appears to be in retaining the allegiance of an intelligent young man, but he urgently needs a more convincing schtick.

But now its back to preparing my security services stall for Fresher’s week.