It certainly should not be taken to suggest that BBC’s record of Islamophobia and support for Israel is about to come to an end.

First of all what attracted the BBC and other corporate media to the Policy Exchange report:The Hijack of British Islam was the fact that it was written by Denis MacEion who has links with LFI,the Israeli Lobby and writes for the Think Israel website.

MacEion describes himself as a “vocal Israel advocate” which must have gone down well with the “Let’s Trash Islam” brigade at the BBC.

McEion had worked as Professor of Islamic studies at Newcastle until the Saudis withdrew the funding for his post reportedly because they disliked the weight MacEion’s lectures gave to Sufism.

He must therefore have undertaken the report in his capacity as a Fellow retained at Newcastle.

For all these reasons there were obvious questions raised about the provenance of the PE report that Newsnight and the corporate media should have asked back in October or earlier…..like when the Saudi Royals were being feted on their state visit or when the arms deal proceeded without an inquiry into the corruption and sweeteners.

In the furore created by the Paxman interview it was utterly overlooked what conclusion MacEion actually came to having discovered that the source for most of the sectarian extremist literature found at some of the most prestigious mosques was Saudi.

He concluded that it was high time we got round to a complete reassessment of the UK/Saudi alliance.

Der……did Newsnight conveniently miss that one?

Perhaps we could direct Newsnight to the venerable Think Israel website where MacEion has a piece entitled:”Why Do Muslims Execute Innocent People?”

Now that sounds like a Newsnight/Daily Mail story with some mileage!