Buzzfeed's Alex Wickham has revealed today what he overheard on "a private bus" carrying MPs and journalists back from Cheltenham races to London back in March 2018.
He was sitting behind two Labour MPs - Dan Carden and Conor McGinn.
Mr Carden is now in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet and Mr McGinn is a former Labour whip now said to be considering running for Labour deputy leader.
Alex reports that Mr Carden, a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, began singing along with Hey Jude by the Beatles:
Dan Carden repeatedly sang the chorus of “Hey Jude”, replacing the word “Jude” with “Jews”. When the chorus reached the word “Jude”, Carden chanted at the top of his voice: “Jews, Jews, Jews”.
They certainly have a bit of an obsession with Jews, don't they?
Meanwhile,
McGinn was sitting next to another male Labour colleague, who was tired from the day’s events and spent much of the coach journey asleep.
Several times during the journey, McGinn’s colleague slumped onto him across their seats. McGinn responded by loudly telling his friend to get off him, calling him a “poof”. McGinn repeatedly used the word to describe his colleague throughout the journey.
Oh dear, a Labour MP repeatably using a homophobic slur. Tut, tut!
It will be interesting to watch and see how the BBC covers this. They are usually keen on 'offence archaeology', so this should be right up their street.
Update: As of midday today, this was the first item on Sky News:
Update: As of midday today, this was the first item on Sky News:
Good afternoon. A member of Labour's Shadow Cabinet has has been accused of mocking the Jewish community. The Shadow International Development Secretary Dan Carden reportedly sang 'Hey Jews' to the tune of the Beatles song 'Hey Jude' during a raucous late night bus trip. The Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson has described the behaviour as disgusting. He says it's not that anti-Semitic.
I think McGinn is well in with the BBC and will weather this one given that he introduced the Bill for same-sex marriage in NI and amused the House by telling them of the waggish reaction to it in the pubs of Camlough, the County Armagh village where he was born:
ReplyDelete'He told the House: “In the rural Armagh village of Camlough sage advice and solace is to be found in the local hostelries of Doyles, Quinns and Traynors, and for me they have always been a good barometer of what the elusive man on the street thinks about the issues of the day.
“In a recent and these days rare visit I chanced to encounter one of these wise men – a gruff agricultural straight-forward south Armagh man – and he said to me: ‘Young McGinn, I see you’re helping out the gays’.
“And he says to me: ‘Sure I’m all for this gay marriage. They’re entitled to be as miserable as the rest of us’.
“And another asked: ‘You see this equal marriage? Will they be able to get equal divorce?’
“When they are making jokes about it you know it’s accepted and part of every day life.”
I'm pretty sure he's also on board with the Stella Creasy action on NI abortion.
South Armagh, eh? Wikipedia tells me "his father was a Sinn Féin councillor"...and anti-semitism has always been a strong strand in Irish Republicanism, which is perhaps why De Valera signed the book of condolence on Hitler's death.
Deletehttps://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/ireland-and-the-nazis-a-troubled-history-1.3076579
The BBC seems to be having more of another actual sex weekend.
ReplyDelete