Same old same old

I haven’t even got a Twitter account, but some bot thinks certain Tweets will be of interest so it kindly emails them to me, which is thoughtful. (They’ve invented thoughtful A.I. now.)

One such message, which arrived yesterday, was this:

How strange to watch some Corbyn-supporters lament anti-Semitism when they have spent years assiduously feeding it: https://t.co/WiUYNanu6j

— Douglas Murray (@DouglasKMurray) March 16, 2016

“How strange to watch some Corbyn-supporters lament anti-Semitism when they have spent years assiduously feeding it: “

Well, it was so interesting that at first I didn’t notice that the Spectator article in question was not current, but revived. It was first published in August 2014. 

Of course at that time it was prompted by the 2014 “Gaza war”, but it’s just as relevant today. In fact more so, in the light of Owen Jones’s recent piece, which is just one example of a whole cluster of lefties and anti-Zionists trying to distance themselves from being thought racist. But they are. 

Professor Geoffrey Alderman’s a short letter in today’s Times on the subject has the header: 

Left’s view of Jews.

“Sir, Hugo Rifkind (“Corbyn must face up to Labour’s antisemitism”, Mar 15) needs to appreciate that within the radical left in British politics there is a long history of anti-Jewish prejudice that pre-dates Zionism. [...] Within the modern Labour party it has now (I fear) become more or less institutionalised.”

Within the BBC it has (and always has been) institutionalised.