In defence of  Ken

We never loved each other, Ken Livingstone and I. We first clashed in public more than a decade ago, and have enjoyed castigating each other ever since. But now that he has been suspended from the Labour party for a second year in a row, I come not to bury him but to praise him. For there is something valorous, even glorious, about his downfall.

It was the MP for Bradford West who triggered his demise. In April last year Naz Shah was exposed for sharing anti–Semitic content on social media. Among these posts was a graphic advising the deportation of all Israeli Jews to the USA. Though such views are hardly a problem (can even be a boon) for a Bradford MP these days, any ambitious young politician may still find them a hurdle. Sure enough, Shah performed all the textbook PR moves. She laundered her reputation through meetings with Jewish ‘communal leaders’. In an apology to the House of Commons, she said she realised how ‘ignorant’ she had been about all matters Jewish. And her career continued.

Douglas Murray and James Forsyth debate Ken Livingstone’s survival:

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Rod Liddle

Sack the judges

One reason for her survival was the monumental act of martyrdom, or deflection, that Ken Livingstone accomplished for her on live radio. While insisting that Shah was not an anti-Semite, Livingstone got into a discussion in which he insisted that Adolf Hitler was in fact a Zionist. This act of self-detonation was performed in such impressive style that this radio interview seemed to run on, in one form or another, for a full year.

Livingstone’s inability to appear on radio, television, or any street corner without mentioning the late German dictator became a source of niche fascination. Not least for the former mayor’s bizarre little appendices, such as his insistence that Hitler’s period ‘supporting Zionism’ was ‘before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews’.