“a credit to both his faith and to his country”

The BBC are collecting tributes to Scotland’s first Muslim MSP, Bashir Ahmed, who has died at 68.

All well and good. The tributes are paid across the political spectrum, from Labour and the Lib Dems to Tories and SNP.

The BBC also offer us a potted biography of Mr Ahmed.

He came to Scotland aged 21 and worked as a bus conductor and bus driver before buying his own shop.

He subsequently owned shops, restaurants and a hotel before retiring from business.

He was elected five times as president of the Pakistan Welfare Association.

In 1995 he founded Scots Asians for Independence, and he had been a member of the SNP’s national executive committee since 1998.

In 2003 he was elected as councillor for the Pollokshields East ward of Glasgow City Council.

He was elected as an SNP member of the Scottish Parliament for the Glasgow region and Scotland’s first and only Asian MSP at the 2007 election.

He served on Cross Party Groups for Carers, Human Rights and Civil Liberties, Older People, Age and Ageing, Palestine and Tartan Day.

He was also a member of Holyrood’s Public Petitions Committee.

As well as his political interests Bashir was an active member of the Asian and Muslim communities in Glasgow attending a number of the committees of various mosques in the city.

Maybe it’s just me. But I can’t help thinking that if, say, a Tory MSP had died, and his CV featured the disruption of a religious service in a mosque, as part of a campaign for more Christian schools, that the BBC would find room to mention it. Probably in the headline and the first paragraph.