Antisemitism in the Labour Party

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken." - Jane Austen

If overseas readers will excuse the omphaloskepsis, I intend to return to the carryings on within the UK Labour Party. One of the ironies in my recent post on the splits within the Labour Party was that the quote at the beginning was of course from one of a (fictional) band of Jewish zealots, and those same overseas readers referenced above may be excused for believing from the title of this post that the starting point relates to prejudice against Jewish people, zealots or otherwise. Instead it all actually stems from that old hobby horse of mine: democracy with the party. Antisemitism, to the extent it exists at all, is merely tangential.

I think it was Woody Guthrie who said that one can only write what one can see, and the reason that I haven't before covered this subject is that I have never witnessed any antisemitism within the party. As it happens my own MP, Alex Sobel, is both Labour and Jewish and when asked a few weeks ago he said that he had never experienced any antisemitic abuse, contrasting that with that he received from extreme right-wingers following speeches he made in parliament about the holocaust and the new Polish anti-defamation law. In mathematics there is a concept known as reductio ad absurdam, which basically means that something is disproved if in order for it to be true something patently ridiculous would also have be true. For me we reached that point a fortnight or so when a Labour councillor defected to the Tories citing antisemitic abuse she had received as the cause despite not actually being Jewish in the first place. It turned out that what had actually happened is that she hadn't been re-selected to stand in the forthcoming elections and, her enjoyment of being on the council being stronger than her political principles she had transferred to the opposition on the promise that she would be allowed to stand for them. All that seems to suggest to me is that the comrades made the right call at the selection meeting.

I see four drivers behind all the current furore:

Firstly, and notwithstanding what I have written above, there clearly is abuse going on. I am not going to rehash arguments that you all know about the pernicious effect social media has on discourse of all sorts not just political. And I have myself on previous occasions lamented the lack of historical perspective and intellectual hinterland of our leading politicians; it is obviously not going to be any better amongst their acolytes. The world is full of ignorant bastards and some of them are inevitably going to be found in the Labour Party; when they are identified as such they should be thrown out.

Secondly, there are people who are actively seeking to widen the definition of antisemitism to include any criticism of Israel. Many of the complaints actually relate to such criticism, and if we value free speech these must be rejected. This is an important point of principle which should be defended, Voltaire like, even by supporters of that state.

Thirdly, it is a convenient stick with which to beat Jeremy Corbyn. In this case I think that he, and those who support him will just have to suck it up. If it wasn't antisemitism it would be something else; it it wasn't Jeremy Corbyn it would be someone else. Cast your mind back to the vitriol thrown at the previous leader of the party by the Tories and the right-wing press: he couldn't eat a bacon sandwich properly (if the overseas readers are still with me, as bizarre as it sounds that is absolutely true), he somehow stabbed his brother in the back by standing against him (whilst mysteriously the opposite wasn't the case), and he couldn't be trusted with national security because his father was a foreign (i.e. Jewish, which you have to admit is quite funny in the circumstances) refugee.

Fourthly, it is a lever to try to remove democratic control from the hands of party members who have only recently seized it. Margaret Hodge wants to close down branches that dare to comment on the situation, whilst her and her friends appear daily in the press with their sob stories and crocodile tears. Tom Watson has called for the deselection process for MPs to be 'suspended', thereby rather giving the game away about his real concern. These people see politics as a nice little game for a select coterie - of whom they are of course members for life - while the rest of us are foot soldiers and cannon fodder. This affair is one further (possibly the last?) attempt to turn back the tide; Canute without the self-knowledge. But, as on that occasion, it won't work.

Pot56pouri

I can't remember why I took up blogging in the first place, boredom presumably. Due to other boredom induced activities my life was disrupted somewhat shortly afterwards and writing the blog became a bit of vaguely creative light relief. It subsequently developed into a way of clandestinely communicating with an agent of mine currently operating undercover; I think the term is 'a sleeper'.  Now it's turning into a vehicle for my OCD, whereby nothing can really have happened to me unless I include it here despite the fact that even I'm not terribly interested in hearing about it. Should I resist this? Obviously. Will I resist this? Obviously not. Therefore before we can crack on with anything else - and I have a bit of hot wargaming action to report on - I need to get all this stuff off my chest. Here goes:

Music: I have seen Nick B. Hall and the Resurrection Men (previously lauded here for their belting cover of Senor, Tales of Yankee Power), Dr Bob and the Bluesmakers (as excellent as ever; Maria was in fine voice) and The Jar Family. I went to the last of these on spec and, let's be honest, because the venue reduced the price to a fiver. However, I must report that they were bloody superb, to the extent that in a rush of blood I bought two of their CDs afterwards. They're on a UK tour and I urge anyone who gets a chance to see them to take it. They describe themselves as folk/blues/psych and to me were a melange of Dylan/Lindisfarne/Traffic. Top stuff.

Theatre: Or possibly music again. I saw 'Woody Sez', a play-with-music come music-with-a-bit-of-acting. It's about Woody Guthrie and the facts of his life can't help but make the thing poignant. I enjoyed it and so did the rest of the sadly small audience.

Days out: I have been to Fountains Abbey with the younger Miss Epictetus and the dog; and I have been to the Otley Show with the elder Miss Epictetus and the dog. The dog, far from being grateful, has left muddy paw prints all across my living room carpet. It will not be invited anywhere by me again. I avoided losing my #newnotnew camera at the Otley Show by the simple and foolproof method of not taking it with me. I am unable once again therefore to bring you photographs of the Young Farmers Ladies Tug-of-War competition, which will be disappointing for any among you who like voluptuous women getting a sweat on.

I'm worried now

But I won't be worried long

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." - Matthew 6:34

You won't have met me, and you'll soon forget me

I seem to have been attending concerts by wrinkly rockers regularly recently. [“Tell me,” the Rhetorical Pedant asks “if you did that deliberately; because it’s not big and it’s not clever.”] Last night at the Royal Hall, Harrogate it was the turn of Lindisfarne, or at least of Ray Jackson masquerading as the whole of Lindisfarne. He did have with him five other musicians who had previously been members of the band at various stages over the last forty years, but only he was there during their first four albums and Top of the Pops phase. The seventh person on the stage was the Great Paul Thompson, previously the drummer of Roxy Music.

They played the hits that you’d expect with the late Alan Hull’s part very ably filled by Dave Hull-Denholm (relation). At the risk of annoying Elkie Brooks’ most passionate fan (hello there Maria), Lindisfarne once again complied with my newly formulated rule that acts of a certain age intensely dislike their most famous hit and end up throwing it away as a singalong. Possibly as the exception that proves the rule this happened not just – as one would imagine – to “Fog on the Tyne”, but also to “We Can Swing Together”. In fact the latter also included truly naff harmonica renditions of a variety of Christmas songs plus “Ilkley Moor Bat’at” as a patronising nod to the crowd and “Blaydon Races” as a patronising nod to Jackson himself. Thankfully “Lady Eleanor”, “Meet Me on the Corner”, “Run for Home” (*) and “Clear White Light” were treated with more of the respect that they deserved. The highlight for me was actually Hull-Denholm’s rendition of “Winter Song”.

And every step I take, takes me further from heaven

In their heyday the band played and recorded an eclectic mix of music and so it was at this concert; encores included tracks more commonly associated with Canned Heat and Woody Guthrie. The crowd however were largely drawn from the folk-rock fraternity, although possibly with a smattering of Harrogate pensioners who had just wandered in to get out of the cold. Anyway, like all folkies the audience fondly imagined that they could sing in tune and clap in time when in fact they could do neither. Thankfully, it being folk rock meant that there was a rhythm section to drown them out. As previously mentioned this included the fantastic Mr Thompson who I always admired in the seventies for the solid base that he provided for Andy Mackay’s wavering sax, Phil Manzanera’s soaring guitar and for whatever it was that Eno did.

* Surely the only instance in popular music of lyrics containing the word 'buffoon'