When I wrote about the Dilpazier Aslam affair at the Guardian (July 24 post) in which a news trainee was sacked after Scott Burgess revealed on the Daily Ablution that he was a member of Hizb ut Tahrir, I commented that the real scandal was that the paper had known about Aslam’s membership all the time but had only acted out of embarrassment once this was disclosed. This was because the paper’s ‘Background Briefing’ on the affair had written:

‘Subsequent to joining the Guardian, Aslam made no secret of his membership of this political party, drawing it to the attention of several colleagues and some senior editors.’

My understanding now is that the situation was not so clear-cut. After he was hired, Aslam mentioned his membership of HuT to the executive who had hired him. Astonishing as this may seem, that executive had no idea what kind of organisation HuT was. The executive is now leaving the paper as a result.

As for Aslam having told ‘several colleagues and some senior editors’, my understanding is that – even more astonishingly -- the colleagues he told also didn’t have a clue about what HuT was, while the ones who did have a clue weren’t told. Some did raise some concerns, apparently, but the executive who had hired him assured them that had had checked it all out and there wasn’t a problem.

If this is true, then it puts the paper in a rather different light. On this account, it is not true that the paper as a whole was untroubled by Aslam’s affiliation until it was exposed. I understand that, on the contrary, many were utterly horrified when they found out. It also implies a level of chaotic disorganisation and general ignorance which some may find incredible. I do not. It happens.

None of this detracts from the central point of this affair. Whatever may or may not have been known about Aslam’s membership of HuT -- and several intriguing questions about this whole affair are still unanswered -- it remains the case that someone subscribing to its wholly unacceptable platform could find a berth at the Guardian which was perfectly comfortable about publishing his views. And that was because they fitted into its own general view of the world. The horror when it discovered that these views emanated from a HuT member was undoubtedly genuine, because they are genuinely horrified by HuT. And what that surely tells us is that the Guardian really doesn’t grasp that its view of the world is as extreme and unacceptable as it is.