Labour, lizards and anti-Semitism

There’s a very funny moment in Jon Ronson’s book Them: Adventures with Extremists, part of which follows the New Age mental case David Icke on a tour of Canada. All the way across the great plains, Icke has been promulgating his thesis that we are the unwitting subjects of shape-shifting reptilian alien overlords. Aside from Ronson, a protestor has been following Icke, too — demonstrating outside each venue —convinced that when Icke says ‘shape-shifting reptilian overlords’ he really means ‘Jews’. Eventually, having heard Icke speak on perhaps a dozen occasions, Ronson asks the protestor, ‘Do you still think that when Icke says lizards, he means Jews?’ And the protester replies, a little crestfallen: ‘No. He really does mean lizards, doesn’t he?’

People get deranged by stuff and end up thinking we’re controlled by mysterious creatures which are sometimes a euphemism for ‘Jews’ and sometimes perhaps not. I don’t know what exactly deranged Mr Icke.