A touch gleefully, the Independent has some details on a Guardian journalist who wrote a ludicrous piece in the aftermath of the London bombings:

“The Guardian newspaper is refusing to sack one of its staff reporters despite confirming that he is a member of one of Britain’s most extreme Islamist groups. Dilpazier Aslam, who has been allowed to report on the London bombings from Leeds and was also given space to write a column in last Wednesday’s edition of The Guardian, is a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical world organisation which seeks to form a global Islamic state regulated by sharia law. It is understood that staff at The Guardian were unaware that Mr Aslam was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir until allegations surfaced on “The Daily Ablution”, a blog run by Scott Burgess. Speculation is mounting that it may have been a sting by Hizb ut-Tahrir to infiltrate the mainstream media…Sources in The Guardian said that Mr Aslam was employed to increase ethnic diversity within the newsroom under The Guardian’s one-year traineeship scheme. One source said: “There was a feeling that we genuinely wanted more diversity, and like all national newspapers we were still a bit ‘pale and male’ so we were keen to recruit from different backgrounds.” In 1994 Richard Gott, a veteran Guardian journalist, resigned as literary editor after he was unmasked as a former KGB spy..”.

Scott’s comments can be seen here.