Sunday Herald Diary: A date with a Prime Minister, a trip with a terrorist and a call to account – now that's a cause wo

Khan, then, was much better known as a former superstar cricketer rather than a politician. The party that he had formed, the PTI, was just a speck in the political firmament. Now he, and it, effectively rule Pakistan. He was wearing a well-cut Western suit, he was charming, relaxed and he spelled out clearly and firmly how his country had been ruined by corruption and how, when his time came, and it would, he would root it out. And he talked about his boyhood and his cricketing days. He had no bodyguards, just a friend with him – those days are gone – and he seemed without artifice. He told me I’d be always welcome in his country although, after this, I’m not sure that invitation still stands.

I have actually twice met a previous Pakistan Prime Minister and also dined in her home. The late Benazir Bhutto invited me to eat with her in the family estate in Larkana. She, again, was utterly disarming. At one point over the meal she produced an official document and pointed out that it had been appended and signed by her predecessor Nawaz Sharif. I commented that it was written in green ink and that in British newspapers that was a sure sign that the sender was a nutter. “Really Mr McKay,” she responded. “I always write in green ink.” I never got invited back.

A TRIP WITH A BEATLE AND A SUICIDE BOMBER

It wasn’t exactly a stushie, more like a verbal pillow fight, when it leaked that Home Secretary Sajid Javid was not going to insist that in any extradition of the alleged Isis “Beatle”, Alexanda Kotey, he couldn’t face the death sentence in whatever country he ended up in, presumably the US. It is customary for that insistence where a British subject is involved (although Kotey is technically stateless) because the UK no longer has the death penalty. Kotey is said to be part of the team of British executioners led by Londoner Mohammed Emwazi – “Jihadi John” – who beheaded around two dozen hostages in Raqqa, including Brits David Haines and Alan Henning. I knew Kotey, if being in his company for several days qualifies, and in my view if he is conclusively proved to be guilty he can be dispatched to the place where he put these brave and innocent souls and I won’t lose a minute’s sleep.

It was in 2009 that Kotey, then a father-of-two and a fan of London football team Queens Park Rangers, joined an aid convoy to Gaza, then, as now, besieged and struggling for life. There were more than 100 vehicles on the convoy and perhaps 500 people. I was one of them. I have no blinding insights into why what seems like a normal, if extremely religious, young man became the monster he is claimed to be. And conversations I had with him will remain private for now, but from what I can recall I don’t think they reveal any murderous motivations.

There was also a future Isis killer on that trip, Ronald Fiddler, or Jamal al-Harith, the name he was given when he converted to Islam. He blew himself up in an Isis suicide attack in Mosul last year, detonating the armoured car he was driving. He was from Manchester and extremely disruptive on the convoy and he was, it emerged, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay who was given £1 million by the UK Government to stop a court action in which he claimed he had been tortured there with the collusion of MI6. The vast majority who travelled to Gaza, however, were decent and caring people who jointly had raised hundreds of thousands of pounds of aid which was successfully delivered.

Twisted fanatics like Kotey and Fiddler aren’t martyrs and wannabes, they’re poster boys for the anti-Muslim rhetoric and actions of Tommy Robinson, Ukip and Donald Trump. The lesson concludes. The memoirs follow.

ART FOR ART'S SAKE, TRUTH FOR GOD'S SAKE

We may not know the initial cause of the Glasgow School of Art fire but surely we do know that those who were meant to be guardians of the historic Mackintosh building are unfit for the job. But still they cling on, with their code of silence, refusing to answer any questions about it, refusing to take responsibility and do the decent thing and resign. Several weeks ago I reported that the insulation used – which appears to have mightily aided the fireball – was apparently the same type as in Grenfell Tower. It has not been denied. I now understand there is to be a Holyrood committee hearing in September about the fire and its ramifications. I trust that all those in the know, the GSA director, the trustees, the architects, Historic Environment Scotland, which oversaw the project, and constructors Kier are made to come and testify.

And also, although it is not directly relevant, a representative from the British insurance industry to explain and justify how the victims of the fire – the shop owners, the locals deprived of their untouched homes – are not being compensated.

THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT PROTEST

If the ecologists and naturalists are serious about opposing the proposed golf course by US billionaire Mike Keiser at Coul Links because of the damage it will do to the historic dunes, then they need to enlist the help of naturists. In Belgium. On a spot about 12 miles west of Ostende, a group of them wanted to open a naked beach. However, a wildlife agency – the Flemish Agency for Nature (no ist) – successfully opposed it on the ground that the “subsidiary activities” of bathers would scare off the rare crested lark and it would scarper forever. The activity was also likely to damage the precious dunes. So there you are RSPB and other campaigners, sponsor a group of naturists to claim that they want to run naked on the sands, with a bit of subsidiary thrown in, and all your problems will be solved.