I'm asked about 7/7, I – a Yorkshire lad, born and bred – will respond first by giving an out-clause to being labelled a terrorist lover. I think what happened in London was a sad day and not the way to express your political anger. Then there's the "but." If, as police announced yesterday, four men (at least three from Yorkshire) blew themselves up in the name of Islam, then please let us do ourselves a favour and not act shocked. Scott Burgess, a conservative American blogger living in London, searched for Aslam's name on the Internet and discovered that he was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, had written articles for its website, Khilafah.com, and quoted the BBC as saying the HT website "promotes racism and anti-Semitic hatred, calls suicide bombers martyrs, and urges Muslims to kill Jewish people." A blogging campaign soon began, supported by notable left- and right-wing blogs, and taken up by some of the mainstream press, to get Aslam sacked. At first, The Guardian appeared to stand by its employee, but he was finally given his notice for refusing to end his membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir. The Guardian said it had been unaware of his membership of the party, and that "on his 15-page application form he did not mention that he was a member of the Islamist political party, Hizb ut-Tahrir, despite being invited to describe any participation in public affairs or political campaigning." However it also noted that after 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." It was also said he submitted his work for Hizb ut-Tahrir's website as part of his application. On announcing that Aslam had been dismissed, The Guardian published a story describing how the blog campaign had unfolded, calling it a "demonstration of the way the 'blogosphere' can be used to mount obsessively personalised attacks at high speed." The publication wrote that Scott Burgess had made a failed application for the Guardian traineeship that had gone to Aslam. Burgess countered that he had only facetiously posted the application on his weblog to entertain his readers. Aslam sued over his premature dismissal from the paper. The Guardian released a statement on 26 May 2006 that it and Alsam "had reached agreement for the final settlement of an Employment Tribunal claim following the