Month: July 2018

So I was thinking. If I ever say that Corbyn is an antisemite, I generally get one of three responses. 1) Yeah, but Palestine. 2) He can’t be. He’s a man of principles. He’s fought racism all his life. 3) Lalalalalalalalalala can’t hear you. We need to get rid of the Tories.

And I generally say the same thing. Actually, I don’t care about him. I care about him about as much as he cares about me. It doesn’t matter whether he’s antisemitic. It doesn’t matter cos he’s an enabler.

What does that mean?

I am, what My Fine Wife calls, an enabler. I support her in her endeavours. I provide support. I help create an environment where she can be what she wants to be. It’s a lovely thing to be called.

The reason I mention this isn’t just to point out that I’m a lovely bloke – though possibly talking about that would be more interesting than banging on about Corbyn again, but… What can I do?

So far what we’ve learnt is that seemingly every day there’s another thing, another racist crawls out of the pit Labour’s descended into. Today is the turn of Peter Willsman, the secretary of The Campaign for Labour Democracy, and this is the story that greeted us today.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/bombshell-recording-proves-corbyn-ally-blamed-jewish-trump-fantatics-for-false-antisemitism-clai-1.467802

So, swiftly moving on from the question of whether or not I’m a Trump fanatic in the pay of Mossad, what does it mean? And how does it relate to the question of whether or not Corbyn is an anti-Semite?

Well, it doesn’t matter what Corbyn thinks. And we don’t know what Corbyn thinks because he never actually says anything. Or if he does say something, he doesn’t follow it up with an action, so the words are empty and meaningless.

But by saying nothing and doing nothing, Corbyn has become an enabler. He enables people like Mary Lockhart (yesterday) and Peter Willsman (today) to be in a safe environment where their rubbish racism to flourish.

By the way, the answer to the three responses is 1) You’re also a racist, 2) I’m not so impressed by principles. Thatcher had principles, wasn’t too keen on her either, 3) Hang about a minute. I’m just going to ask that turkey what he thinks of Christmas.

Can you imagine what it’s like living in Corbynland? There can’t be enough hours in the day to discuss Israel and Palestine and Jews and Zionism. Daytime meetings. Evening meetings. Meetings about anything – the Left love meetings – that turn into meetings about Israel and Palestine. Everyone you know is talking about it. Everyone is responding to it. Lines are drawn. Where do you stand in relation to it? And when that happens, it’s easy to lose perspective.

I had a bit of re-think after that last post. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t believe that Billy Bragg actually was antisemitic. I know which side of the fence he’s on, that he’s a proper Corbynite and I know he said all that stuff about Jews “having work to do”, but still it didn’t really make sense. A man steeped in Woody Guthrie, why would he turn into a racist?

It made me think about the world he lives in and how you can get immersed into a world, how you can get consumed by it. And when that happens, people like Billy can say things like Billy said.

And it made me think about the world I live in, and in particular the social media world I live in. We all know words like “bubble” and phrases like “echo chamber” and we’re all aware that stuff. But still.

I’m still a Facebook-head. I know most other people have migrated to Instagram, but I still prefer a bit of a rabbit to pictures showing what I had for dinner last night. Facebook’s an odd place these days, it’s like a bar that most people have left and it’s just now just a few old blokes moaning. But that’s fine. I’m an old bloke and I like moaning.

So in Facebookland, I’ve got 1,481 friends but I only ever hear from about 10 people and now they’re the most familiar names in my world. They’re mostly people I’ve never met. Friends who I chat with most days, but I wouldn’t know them if I sat next to them on the train as it apologises its way up the track.

Every day I tune into these people and read their threads, see what they’re thinking, let their thoughts seep into mine. Who are these people? What are they doing in my world? And how did they come to be in my world?

Mostly my friends comments are forthright, their opinions strong, their views rigid. And mostly they’re angry. Or if not angry, then upset. They – all the people called David and all the people who read the Davids – write a lot, make a lot of comments about politics and life, about what’s right and what’s not. They’re all very pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn. And that’s fine by me because I’m very pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn and in the land of algorithmic opinion, this is where I’ve landed.

I’m fine with that, and even if does seem that Facebook is a diminishing world and now people prefer a world where the most political it gets is if you post an Instagram picture of your main course from an oblique angle. Actually, I can’t blame them for that. Politics these days is a fairly miserable place.

But what it means is that in my social media world, everyone is talking about Corbyn and antisemitism and (last week) Billy Bragg and (the week before) Margaret Hodge and no one is talking about food or where they went for dinner last night. And if everyone you know is talking about X, it’s easy to think that everyone else is talking about this stuff, that everyone cares about this stuff. Truth is, they’re probably not and they probably don’t.

If I was living in my social media world, I’d probably say something like “Exactly. That’s what Corbyn is counting on. He knows no one really cares about Jews and because there’s not enough of us to make an electoral difference he can do what he likes. So he’ll keep offering new Bank Holidays for things like not winning the World Cup and everyone will think he’s marvellous”.

If I was living in everyone else’s social media world, I’d probably be more interested in this

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Postscript: I was reading this morning and one of the Davids had had a Twitter-chat with Billy Bragg the upshot of which was

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Good for Billy. People don’t often apologise and he did and hats off to him for that. Still don’t like his music.

I know I said this isn’t all going to be about The Labour Party, but…. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to saying that a lot. Maybe it’s what I should have called the site. Maybe not. I’m guessing there’s going to be a lot of sites called that.

Oh well. Today’s exciting instalment is called “It’s all gone a bit Billy Bragg”. Now then, you’ve got to assume Billy’s a smart bloke. You might not like his politics, but you’ve got to assume he’s bright. And you’ve got to assume he knows about decent behaviour.

Decent behaviour goes like this. If you upset someone and you didn’t mean to upset them, you say “I’m really sorry for upsetting you. I didn’t realise what I said was so distressing and really the last thing I wanted to do was upset you and I’m really sorry”.

Decent behaviour does not go like this. “I upset you, but you’re wrong to be upset and let me tell you why”.

Billy has boxed himself into a corner, a corner so tight he can’t do that most basic thing. He can’t take a step back, look at what’s said from a bit of distance and think “Ah… I might have misjudged this one”. So he just digs and digs and keeps on digging.

“If I dig long enough, I might find the plot cos I seem to have completely lost it”.

A few days ago, Billy posted this:

There’s all shades of wrong here. What does it even mean? Am I more loyal to Israel than “to the interests of” England? Is this some kind of Norman Tebbit cricket test? I wouldn’t have thought that’s who Billy would want to associate with, but maybe that’s who he is now. It’s been said before that the Far Left and the Far Right aren’t so different. We all change.

Given that Israel doesn’t play Test cricket, maybe he means “Who would I vote for in the Eurovision Song Contest?” In fairness to Bill, I don’t know. I was happy Israel won the last one, but that chicken song isn’t going to appear on a Spotify playlist anywhere near me. I’m not sure how I would show “loyalty” to either Israel or England.

And what does it mean “the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide”? I genuinely have no idea what that means. I’m guessing it’s some kind of reference to a global Jewish conspiracy. And, by the way, when it comes to the global Jewish conspiracy, I’m not saying there is and I’m not saying there isn’t. The first rule of Fight Club, you know.

The whole thing looks a bit deranged. It sounds a bit mad. A little bit… like he’s stressed.

So yesterday Britain’s three leading Jewish weekly newspapers belied the old joke about “two Jews, three opinions” by all having the same leader and each other’s logos on their front pages. “United We Stand” was the head and in the copy they spoke of “the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government”.

Newspaper editorials are designed to make the reader think. They’re designed to make you question. That’s their job. An existential threat. Maybe. Who knows? Well, Billy knows.

and says, quite reasonably, “how are we supposed to conduct a reasonable debate about antisemitism in such a febrile atmosphere”.

To Billy, this is a reasonable question. But it’s only a reasonable question because of where you’re standing. From where I’m standing, it looks a bit different.

From where I’m standing… the thing is we’re not supposed to conduct a reasonable debate about antisemitism. We don’t need a reasonable debate about antisemitism. Billy – and his wing of the Labour Party – are the only people who want a “reasonable debate about antisemitism”.

No, we don’t need a reasonable debate about antisemitism. What we need is for you to just be quiet for a bit. What we need is for your party to try to remember it’s Her Majesty’s Official Opposition and start bloody opposing.

And if we’re going to have “a reasonable debate” maybe it should be about why you and your party are so obsessed with Jews.

Most of my life has been on the Left of the political spectrum. Like most people I know, I was always more devoted to talking about doing rather than doing. Ideas, I had. Lots of ideas. And they all came with a glass of something. Action, not so much. I was a member of the Labour Party for a while. I was a member of the Socialist Workers Party for a short while. And, as I tell my students now, I’ve worked on every national newspaper except The Sun and The Daily Mail.

The liberal left. That’s me. Worked in the media then in academia. Lived in north London then in Brighton. Cut me and I bleed sourdough.

But in recent times it’s seemed that the climate has changed. And it feels like a cold wind is blowing.

Last week I got kinda grumpy. And I’m not a grumpy person. I’m a happy person. Glass half full? Half empty? I’m happy to have a glass. So anyway, last Monday (July 16) I turned on the radio, the Today Programme, and there was a report about fighting in Gaza. John Humphrys introduced the piece “Two Palestinian teenagers were killed in an attack by Israel on Gaza. They were pupils at a school run by the United Nations Relief Agency”.

Humphrys introduced Chris Gunness from the UN Relief Agency. He spoke with an emotional urgency, voice quivering. “There was an Israeli air strike on a popular gathering place in Gaza City, a park where many families go, two children were killed… Imagine a foreign power using massive air power on a building in central London and two British children are killed… There should be international outrage and condemnation”.

There wasn’t a discussion about why what had happened had happened. There wasn’t any talk about what had inspired the Israelis to do the terrible things they’d undoubtedly and unquestionably done. No dispute that there should be international outrage and condemnation.

To the casual listener – and most listeners of the Today Programme are casual, listening with one ear as they’re getting up, getting dressed, getting the kids ready, getting ready for work – it sounded extraordinary. The might of the Israeli army bombarding people living in tents, dropping high grade bombs, killing children.

The next day – on the radio again – and there was a report about the Labour Party and a new definition of antisemitism. Seems that Labour had come up with a new way to define antisemitism and the Jews didn’t like it. Seems that 68 rabbis had written a letter to The Guardian to complain.

There wasn’t any discussion about why there needed to be a definition of anti-Jewish racism. There wasn’t any discussion about why the Labour Party had decided that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition, a definition that had been adopted worldwide, was not good enough. No one said “Can you imagine a situation where the Labour Party were to tell Black people what was and what wasn’t racism?”

No one said “Can you imagine a situation where the Labour Party were to tell women what was and what wasn’t sexism?”

To the casual listener, it sounded… Jews again. Jews complaining again.

Two days but it could have been any two days. Israel doing terrible things. Jews complaining. And the two things are seemingly inter-linked.

Doesn’t matter that I’m from east London. Doesn’t matter that my ancestral roots are in eastern Europe. Doesn’t matter that I last went to Israel when I was 17. It seems that, in the world’s eyes – in your eyes – I am linked to Israel. And Israel is linked to me.

What I can’t quite work out is… why. Has the climate changed or have I? What would the 18-year-old me make of Corbyn? What would the 18-year-old me make of the Today Programme?

I used to argue that the IRA were right. In 1981, during one of the last great battles for the soul of the Labour Party, I was devastated (well, maybe not devastated, maybe more pissed off) that Denis Healey beat Tony Benn to the deputy leader post. Odds on, the 18-year-old me would be a Corbyn supporter – though he’d be far too cool to ever sing “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn…”

Now I think the 18-year-old me was a twat. In fairness though, for the 18-year-old me, supporting Corbyn wouldn’t have been in the “Top Ten Twattish Things” I was doing back then.