The myth of Jeremy Corbyn, a kind and gentle man | 14 August 2018

I am relaxed about Jeremy Corbyn being thicker than mince but draw the line at the assumption, all too evidently held by most of his most devoted supporters, that you must be too. If Corbyn wishes to deny the obvious that is his prerogative; the notion you should be prepared to swallow any and every piece of whitewashing nonsense peddled by his fans is quite a different matter. 

“I was present” when the wreath was laid “but I don’t think I was involved in it” is, I suppose, a step forward from the Labour party’s previous suggestion that “The Munich widows are being misled. Jeremy did not honour those responsible for the Munich killings”. (“Killings, incidentally, is an unusually coy way of referring to these things but we may as well agree to let that slide.) Holding a wreath should not be reckoned any kind of endorsement of the wreath; we know Jeremy deplores this kind of thing and, indeed, all other forms of wreath. 

Hark, though, at how quickly the approved line may shift.