There is a certain irony that a documentary series purporting to expose the attempts of a foreign government to influence the UK political scene should have been made by Al Jazeera, a news organisation funded by the Qatari government.

But the foreign government targeted by the undercover filming was, of course, Israel. The Mail on Sunday screamed 'Israel Plot To Take Down Tory Minister'  — an arresting headline with just one problem.

The story provided no evidence of any plot. Rather, the worst thing Al Jazeera managed to find after 6 months of filming was a series of juvenile boasts over lunch between a contract employee of the Israeli Embassy and a part time aide to a minister.

Shai Masot said how he and his colleagues would rather Sir Alan Duncan was not in office. Given Sir Alan's open and repeated hostility to Israel, it would perhaps have been more newsworthy had Mr Masot not said that. 

As we went to press, the only other supposed revelations have been that the Israeli government contributes to the cost of MPs’ visits to Israel and that members of the Union of Jewish Students have talked to members of the NUS executive who are hostile to the union’s president, Malia Bouattia.

The devastating discovery provided by six months of Al Jazeera’s undercover filming is that people with similar views talk to each other and discuss how best to persuade others to agree with them. But then we have been here many, many times before, and we will be here again. Because when it is Jews — sorry, Israelis — doing the talking, it becomes a plot.