Jackie, well done for picking this up.

The Guardian newspaper is a disgrace to journalism in this country. Terrible really - back when it was the Manchester Guardian and a stalwart of liberalism (in the best old-fashioned sense of that word), it was a fine paper.

Maybe the police and security services leant on the editors there. I would not be at all surprised.

I always felt that the Guardian was moderately ok until 1993 when they bought The Observer and introduced a cancer into their midst.

Rightwing bloggers from the US, where the Guardian has a large online following, were behind the targeting last week of a trainee Guardian journalist who wrote a comment piece which they did not care for about the London bombings.

Right wing? US? What about us? What about Harry's Place, which is a LABOUR supporting blog? They are soooooo full of shit. We are a mostly UK blog, and of course Scott Burgess is now in the UK but it panders to the Grauniad's anti-US biases for him to be highlighted as 'American'.

The story is a demonstration of the way the 'blogosphere' can be used to mount obsessively personalised attacks at high speed

In other words just like the Guardian, only we can do it faster.

So, the mighty Guardian has had their first 'New York Times Moment'. Not the last, I assure you.

It did not mention that the author was a member of the radical but non-violent Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, proscribed in Germany and Holland as anti-semitic.

And as we know, being a member of an anti-semitic group has rarely proved a career impediment at the Guardian.

I like the description of Scott Burgess ''posting repeated attacks'', while he ''spends his time indoors''. Um, isn't that what Guardian journalists do, in their comfortable offices..? This whinging article makes it look as though their reporters are fearlessly roaming the streets for breaking news!

Even better was the following para: "In the Independent on Sunday, Shiv Malik, also briefly a Guardian intern, accused the hapless Aslam of mounting "a sting by Hizb ut-Tahrir to infiltrate the mainstream media"." Ahh, even your former 'comrades' turn on you. Is there no honour in left-wing rags anymore...?

They don't like it up 'em, do they....!

Scott Burgess, if you are reading this, have yourself a large cold beer. Well done for helping shine a light on some murky corners in a poisonous newspaper.

There is nothing improper about a member of a rabid cult writing for the Guardian,many of its "journalists" begin to foam at the mouth within 100 yards of a word processor.What is improper is that the fact is not mentioned in the byline.

The Guardian is also waving Burgess's application to be a trainee journalist at their paper last year as proof of...something. But Burgess claims that this application was a 'hoax'. It will be interesting to find out more on this, but none of it looks good for the Guardian. And the fact of it is, they are the ones making it even worse for themselves.

NB I just have to pass on this comment that Jim Treacher sent to me in email just now:

I especially like the part about how Burgess "spends his time indoors" keeping track of the Grauniad. What, does their staff all sit under a big tree with their laptops?

Good scoop Jackie

Scott Burgess's trainee application is detailed here.

D. Aslam was a great journalist. He had the courage to denounce THE RAMPANT « IS-REALIZATION » OF THE WEST
“We are now satisfied that the individual we shot yesterday was not connected with the incidents of Thursday 21st July 2005” says Scotland Yard, emulating the Pentagon’s steely technocratic verbiage…

After all, what’s the value of a single “disconnected collateral damage” when Tony and George are busy with grander schemes, tomahawking the Middle-East into a freedom-loving/Exxon-friendly paradise?

Coincidentally, while London’s trigger-happy policemen are busy shooting innocent British Muslims, Tony’s friend Dr Rice is back in her favorite country Eretz Israel to “facilitate prime minister’s Sharon’ work”…. I kind of wonder what that means: give him a few extra billions in US taxpayers’ money?

The true reason for Condi’s visit is that she’s eager to get a firsthand look at the Israeli Defense Forces in action while they massacre their way out of the Gaza strip: the IDF’s “Jenin model” has actually become America’s exemplary template for “combating urban Arab insurgency” and dealing with recalcitrant “terrorists” from Fallujah in the “Sunni triangle” to Leeds, London, and the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

We’ve really come full circle now: after having fixed fake intelligence around BushBlair’s martial foreign policy (2000-2002), after having supervised the invasion and occupation of a country that posed no threat to the West whether “imminent” or otherwise (2OO3-to that day), Israel’s Neocon “security experts” are now exporting their technical know-how in handling “dark-skinned urban insurgency”: US marines and Scotland Yard’s operatives seem to be learning real fast.

Dr Victorino de la Vega writes:

"D. Aslam was a great journalist..." followed by another few hundred words of babbling idiocy.

I can confidently predict that the good "Doctor" is not a professional in the field of mental health.

Wow, so the Guardian is totally disingenuous in trying to portray Burgess's dogged pursuit of this story as some kind of sour grapes over not getting the trainee position. I guess I give them too much credit, because that level of dishonesty on their part does surprise me.

Oh there's a deep, deep resentment at the Guardian over this, it oozes from each word of that statement. I suspect it's not actually the loss of one cub reporter, as well attuned as he is to the Guardian's mores and values. The resentment comes from Scott's temerity, his gall in holding up the a major leftie mouthpiece to scrutiny. He obviously hasn't got the message that the aloof, untouchable left runs the show in Blighty, can do as it pleases and is not required to explain itself.

The "doctor" on this thread sounds like a piece of anti-semitic, surrender monkey scum to me. Shove it, "doctor".