The ridiculous rehabilitation of Azeem Rafiq

Has Azeem Rafiq been forgiven yet? He’s certainly working on it. After finding himself on both sides of a racism scandal, the former Yorkshire cricketer’s rehabilitation PR operation has been nothing if not swift. As the story broke last week that Rafiq had sent messages mocking Jewish people, he apologised immediately: ‘I am incredibly angry at myself and I apologise to the Jewish community’.

The following day, in an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Rafiq apologised again: ‘My genuine feeling is that I deserve the flak. I f***ed up’. ‘It’s for the Jewish community to decide whether you guys accept my apology,’ he added.

Rafiq has popped up once more today with a video of him meeting Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert at a synagogue in Finchley. ‘The powerful moment Azeem Rafiq understood where antisemitism leads’, read the headline in the Jewish News. In the picture beneath it, he looks remorseful as he learns about Auschwitz for the first time.