Do read Brian Cathcart's article in this week's New Statesman.

In the light of the the journalist Shiv Malik's hounding by the Greater Manchester police,Brian reminds us that

He had written for this magazine and others about hardline Islamism in this country, about connections with Pakistan, about the mood in places where the British National Party was active. Naturally, after the July 2005 bombs he was one of the people we at the New Statesman turned to for help - for human intelligence, if you like - and he produced a series of revealing, first-hand accounts of the bombers' world

and

Malik does what reporters are supposed to do: he finds his way to the heart of the story and talks to people who matter, asking important questions. It takes courage. His colour helps him gain access, no doubt, though most Muslims know instantly from his name that, by birth at least, he is not one of them. His background is Hindu and in fact he is an atheist.

It is rather unfortunate now that due to his journalistic relationship to Hassan Butt

The message of this will be clear: anybody who has real information about the terrorism milieu will know that talking to a reporter is no different from talking directly to the police, with all that that implies.