Letters | 19 December 2009

Selective quoting

Sir: In her diary (5 December) Melanie Phillips accused me of bigotry, quoting from a newspaper article about the Iraq inquiry in which I had pointed out that two of the five members of the panel, Sir Martin Gilbert and Sir Lawrence Freedman, are Jewish and that Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism.

She did not mention that I went on to comment that these two men had outstanding reputations and records, but it was a pity that, if and when the inquiry was accused of a whitewash (and indeed it already has been) such handy ammunition would be available. Membership, I wrote, should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.

Ms Phillips accuses me of the Prejudice That Can No Longer Be Named, but in a blog posted last week she named it as anti-Jewish racial prejudice, adding that ‘it is a baleful comment on the state of the British public discourse that this man felt able to say this so openly’.