Frank Gardner's Sunday Morning Sermon

Here, for the record, is the remarkable exchange between Andrew Marr and the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner on this morning's Marr Show paper review. 

It's as clear a distillation of 'BBC thinking' on the subject as you are ever likely to encounter:

Andrew Marr: And then, Frank, there is the whole question of the Muslim communities in France and Belgium, feeling pretty besieged this morning I'm sure.

Frank Gardner: Well, some of them will be and I think this is the really dangerous thing, that there could be a sort of backlash. I mean the trouble is when you have something like this, it can appeal to the base instincts of some people who go blame an entire community or entire religion. And, you know, this is...We're at a really dangerous stage here I think where, you know, migrants, Muslims, anybody, is going to get blamed, lumped in with these awful people who are condemned by those very communities. And I think it's so important to make that absolutely...

Andrew Marr: To distinguish.

Frank Gardner: To distinguish that. Yes it's true that the people doing these awful things are shouting 'Allahu Akbar!' or whatever but they are stealing from their own religion to do this and blackening its name. And, you know, I've spent much of my adult life of 25 years or more living amongst Muslims in the Middle East and found them to be peaceful people. And I know people are going to go, oh God! that guy's just so starry-eyed or whatever. No! This is fact, that these people have just perverted it...

Andrew Marr: You're not starry-eyed because you were shot by them as well.

Frank Gardner: Yeah, you know, some people can accuse me of having some of Stockholm Syndrome or something. You know, you get all sorts of nonsense on Twitter for that, you know, from social media. But it's a dangerous juncture because it's really important that society doesn't get polarised now.