By Ben Pensant

Are there any depths this godforsaken government won’t sink to? Not content with squatting in Prime Minster Corbyn’s living room, awarding generous backhanders to failed construction giant Marillion, and forcing Britain to exit the EU just because more people voted Leave than Remain, they’ve now opted to insult peaceful Muslims everywhere by appointing an ‘anti-extremism tsar’. Just as hate crime soars to epidemic levels. Priceless.

But even worse, Theresa May has decided not to give the job to a principled representative of the Islamic faith like Ashgar Bukakke or Cherie Blair’s mam, but instead award it to self-hating Islamophobe Sarah Khan. That’s right, they’ve not only created an entire bureau dedicated to persecuting Muslims they’ve also decided it should be run by that gobby wife off Loose Women.

They’re just trolling us now, aren’t they?

Because that’s the only possible explanation for this ludicrous decision. Which comes barely a fortnight since Cathy Newperson demonstrated what a real female role model looks like, by defeating alt-right bully Kevin B. Peterson with the most glorious deployment of the straw-man argument since a Guardian reporter asked Winston Churchill after his ‘fight them on the beaches’ speech: ‘So what you’re saying is the next time we’re in Tenerife we should beat up the first lucky-lucky man who tries to sell us two Rolexes for a tenner?’

Predictably, Cathy was subjected to a torrent of misogynist abuse for daring to ignore virtually everything Peterson said, including threats so serious that Channel 5 refused to tell anyone what they were. Well played, righties. As if it wasn’t traumatic enough that a poor woman’s entire world view was destroyed by a crumpled academic who sounds like Kermit The Frog.

And did the government step in to do something about the bile directed at Cathy? Did they balls. These Tory titweasels would rather offer a cushy job to a daytime telly star who spends her afternoons slagging off her dopey husband than protect an intelligent Oxford graduate whose response to being called an arsehole on Twitter is to ring MI5.

But if you thought potato-faced sex-pest Tony Young was woefully underqualified to join a regulatory board no-one outside of Westminster gives two shits about, wait ’til you get a load of Sarah, otherwise known as ‘the right kind of Muslim’. Not a marginalised Muslim, or a radicalised Muslim, or any other kind of Muslim who refuses to sell out their faith in the name of integration. No, Sarah’s a moderate Muslim. Or as her estranged brother the Mayor Of London would say, an Uncle Tom.

Oh hang on, I forgot: she’s also in an Islamic girl-group called Inspire. I do apologise. Let’s all throw garlands at the feet of these little pop princesses for steering young Muslims away from extremism through the power of song. How nice of them to use inappropriate outfits and a name that sounds like a shit deodorant to coerce their brothers and sisters into bowing down to white supremacy. Sarah’s mother Chaka must be so proud.

Of course it will surprise no-one to learn that Sarah got her big break by winning The Candidate, a TV show invented by none other than Donald Trump. And I imagine he’s pleased as punch with her career, another subservient House Muslim to go with Maajid Johnson and Diane Hirsi Ali. But Sarah is arguably even more shameful than those two, exploiting the anodyne arena of daytime TV to spread her Islamophobic poison.

Not that I expect to find much in the way of social justice on Loose Women. Despite being a key member of their audience demographic due to spending most weekday afternoons sprawled on a settee, I wouldn’t lower myself to watch this disposable trash if you paid me. (Though I’d be willing to negotiate if that payment came in the form of coffee and warm blankets.)

But as I wrote in For Those About To Mock, my popular piece on the Lewis Smith scandal of October 2016, even television designed for idiots can occasionally hit the right notes. Which Mandy Dingle and Janet Street Preacher proved tenfold when they ambushed an Olympic athlete to blame him for the death threats he received after being caught on camera arsing about on a rug.

Sarah, however, has little time for such principled probing, preferring to abuse her platform to bang on about FGM. As if a child having her vagina mutilated is as remotely abhorrent as a young man at a wedding putting on a silly voice and pretending to pray.

Thankfully, Sarah’s appointment was met with horror by a principled coalition of Islamists and Islamist apologists – otherwise known as the Muslim Council Of Britain and the Labour Party. Indeed, it’s a measure of their decency that the same people who would accuse others of incitement for mentioning Islam and terrorism in the same sentence think nothing of publicly attacking a liberal Muslim and putting a huge target on her forehead.

And they were able backed by Baroness Warsaw, who chipped in to condemn the appointment as ‘deeply disturbing’. Baroness, you may recall, made a name for herself as a friend of Palestine and as a result is literally the only Tory who won’t be hung, drawn and quartered on Hyde Park when the Day Of Jezzajudgement arrives. (A year of scrubbing floors on the Thames floating gulag interspersed with weekly gang-rapes overseen by an assortment of Absolute Boys should be punishment enough.)

She also earned props for her objection to the despicable Prevent strategy, that foul initiative which unfairly targets Islamic terrorism as a major cause for concern simply because most terrorists are followers of Islam. Needless to say Sarah is a long time champion of Prevent, which explains her eagerness to combine moaning about cellulite on ITV with helping the most fascist government in UK history persecute her own people. Nice.

And now, thanks to the Tories going all-out to tighten their grip on this most marginalised of communities, she’ll be able to persecute them full-time. Well done, Mrs May. What next, Tommy Robertson appointed Minister For Diversity?

Give these bastards an inch and they don’t just take a mile, they force you to walk it wearing nothing but socks while throwing nettles at your bell-end. Still, much like Sarah’s hero Trump – who showed that being a racist reality star is no barrier whatsoever to pursuing a career in politics – fingers crossed Sarah’s fifteen minutes of fame will expose her deeply problematic views, alerting the world to the uncomfortable truth of this dangerous, contradictory character:

A Muslim who hates Muslims.

An extremist fighting extremism.

A scholar, CEO and human rights campaigner who spends her days off grassing up Muslims, getting her kit off in Bollywood scud movies and pimping out her bald husband on live television.

Would the real Sarah Khan please stand up?