Jeremy corbyn

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

Jeremy Corbyn and the far left’s anti-Semitism doublespeak

The supporters of Jeremy Corbyn are meant to comprise the most cultish movement British politics has seen. Yet on the issue of left anti-Semitism they do not blindly follow their leader. For once in their lives, they give every impression of thinking for themselves. Corbyn has come as close as he can to admitting a mistake – which by most people’s standards is not close at all. Like Stalin airbrushing his own history, he has deleted his Facebook account. He did not explain how he found himself a member of Facebook groups that featured Holocaust denial, or defending  medieval fanatics who believe Jews drink the blood of Christian children, or

Steerpike Steerpike

Shadow minister: I’m not endorsing Corbyn’s leadership

Oh dear. The Labour party is once again divided thanks to the unfolding row over allegations of anti-Semitism. Although Jeremy Corbyn has insisted there is no place in the party for anti-Semitic views, the Labour leader has antagonised many of his MPs further with his decision to attend a Jewdas – ‘radical Jewish diaspora group’ – event on Sunday evening. Now it seems even his own front-bench are having doubts about their leader. In an interview with Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk Radio, Stephen Pound – the shadow minister for Northern Ireland – said he doesn’t endorse Corbyn’s leadership on a ‘personal basis’: JHB: By serving on his [Corbyn’s] frontbench you are endorsing

Monday

Hannah Lucinda Smith

The political similarities between Erdogan and Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn’s loyalists might howl at the suggestion that his style is similar to President Erdogan’s. But they would do well to pay heed to the parallels. The Turkish strongman, like the Labour leader, puts great effort into polishing his image as a pluralist and an ally of the minorities. On Friday he sent his customary Passover message to Turkey’s Jewish community, telling them that he regards them as ‘an inseparable part’ of the country. He did the same for Turkey’s Christians as they celebrated Easter on Saturday, adding that ‘(our) diversity is our treasure’. A day later, though, Erdogan stood in front of a crowd of his faithful and

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of Labour’s anti-Semitism row goes from bad to worse

After a weekend of horrid headlines for Labour over anti-Semitism, Jeremy Corbyn is keen to be seen to be talking tough on the issue. The Labour leader has told Channel 4 news that his party will not be ‘tolerating anti-Semitism in any form’ and Momentum – the pro-Corbyn grassroots group – has acknowledged that ‘accusations of anti-Semitism should not and cannot be dismissed simply as right-wing smears’. Only, despite this, Corbyn appears to have gone one step forward and two steps back. Guido reports that the Labour leader tonight attended a Seder in Islington held by ‘Jewdas’. Jewdas are a ‘radical Jewish diaspora group’ who sit on the fringes of the Jewish community.

Friday

Steerpike

Labour’s pockets of anti-Semitism: the evidence

This week, Jeremy Corbyn said he was ‘sincerely sorry’ for the pain that had been caused to the Jewish community by anti-Semitism in ‘pockets’ within the Labour Party. Alas, his apology wasn’t enough to stop protesters – including some of his party colleagues – gathering in Parliament Square on Monday to voice their concerns. Nor were Corbyn’s comments enough to dissuade some of his more loyal supporters that allegations of anti-Semitism aren’t always an MSM smear designed to keep the Tories in No 10. So that readers can make up their own mind as to the size of those ‘pockets’, below is a list which has been compiled detailing alleged incidents

Thursday

Stephen Daisley

Labour can’t tackle anti-Semitism under Corbyn

The Labour Party brings to mind any number of Yiddish expressions — most of them involving the performance of lavatorial functions — but none more so than the proverb Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht. Man plans and God laughs.  The Almighty’s black humour is surely at work in the resignation of Christine Shawcroft, chair of the Labour Party disputes panel. The woman responsible for rooting out anti-Semitism has been caught defending a council candidate accused of posting Holocaust-denying content on social media. In a leaked internal email, Shawcroft called for Peterborough’s Alan Bull to be reinstated after suspension for ‘a Facebook post taken completely out of context and alleged

Wednesday

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 28 March 2018

At last Jeremy Corbyn is being made to pay a price for Labour’s anti-Semitism under his leadership. It has now, for the first time, become definitely hard for him to get through mainstream interviews. He is challenged, and although his answers bend to the wind of criticism a little, this affords him no respite. His repeated response of saying how much he ‘detests all racism’ is like Sinn Fein’s traditional denunciation of violence ‘wherever it comes from’ — an evasion. His demeanour raises wider questions about whether he will ever answer anything which is difficult: there is a reason, after all, why he has not agreed to be interviewed on the

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 28 March 2018

Home ‘We recognise that anti-Semitism has occurred in pockets within the Labour Party,’ Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, said. ‘I am sincerely sorry for the pain which has been caused.’ His remarks were released before the publication of an open letter to Labour MPs from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council which said Mr Corbyn was incapable of contemplating anti-Semitism seriously ‘because he is so ideologically fixed within a far-left worldview that is instinctively hostile to mainstream Jewish communities’. Earlier, Mr Corbyn had said: ‘I sincerely regret that I did not look more closely’ at a mural satirising Jewish financiers when he posted remarks

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How Jeremy Corbyn had a successful PMQs

Jeremy Corbyn didn’t pick the most obvious topic to lead on – or indeed mention – at Prime Minister’s Questions today. While the Tories are in deep discomfort on the Worboys case, the Labour leader chose instead to talk about something on which even he had to concede Theresa May has shown a fair bit of commitment over the years: mental health. It wasn’t until later in the session that the Ministry of Justice’s handling of the serial rapist’s case was raised at all. But that said, this was one of Corbyn’s best Prime Minister’s Questions. Normally when he attacks on health, he often meanders around general topics without really

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour MPs are suspicious of Corbyn again

One of the mistakes Theresa May made in calling an early election was not anticipating the effect it would have on the Labour party. Up until April 2017, Labour had been noisily divided between the parliamentary party — the vast majority of whom had no confidence in its leadership — and Jeremy Corbyn whom they couldn’t remove because he had the backing of the membership. But the snap election changed this dynamic. Corbyn’s internal opponents nearly all went quiet once the campaign was announced. This wasn’t just tribal loyalty asserting itself. They wanted to make sure that Corbyn failed on his own terms — that there could be no stab-in-the-back

Alastair Thomas

The Corbynasties

It took a protest of Jews in Westminster for Jeremy Corbyn to own up to the Labour party’s problem with anti-Semitism. It ‘has caused pain and hurt to Jewish members of our party and to the wider Jewish community in Britain,’ he said — an admission that has been a very long time coming. But among Corbyn’s cultish young followers, the apology was met with a shrug. ‘Problem? What problem?’ This I know, because I’m (roughly) a Labour supporter and have lots of Corbyn–supporting friends. And for Corbynites of my age (early twenties), the whole issue remains just another attempt to delegitimise Corbyn’s bid to become prime minister. That’s why

Monday

Stephen Daisley

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem is nothing new

We may be witnessing a #MeToo moment in Labour anti-Semitism. Britain’s Jews, so damn accommodating and willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, have finally snapped and said ‘enough is enough’. At 5.30pm tonight they will gather in Westminster to protest in the most British way imaginable by handing the Labour Party a strongly-worded letter. The letter calls Jeremy Corbyn a ‘figurehead for an anti-Semitic political culture’ and says he has repeatedly ‘sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews’. If anything, it goes a little easy on him.  The spark was Corbyn’s defence of, and dissembling over, an anti-Semitic mural in east London but the frustrations have been building up

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Corbyn’s blindness to anti-Semitism is typical on the left

I don’t believe Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite. I think most Corbynistas aren’t anti-Semitic. But here’s one thing I can say with utter certainty: if any other politician in the land had commented favourably on an explicitly racist mural, on a vile, caricatured depiction of a certain section of society as evil and dangerous, he would be finished. He would be hounded out of public life. He would be told in no uncertain terms that there is no place for apologists for racial hatred in the political sphere. And you know who would tell him this? Who would do this to him? Who would be at the forefront of demanding

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Jewish community says ‘enough is enough’ on Labour’s anti-semitism

Jeremy Corbyn this evening said he was ‘sincerely sorry’ for the pain caused by ‘pockets of anti-semitism’ in his party, and is arranging to meet representatives of the Jewish community this week. Tonight the Labour leader has had something of a preview of how that meeting might go, with the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council publishing a furious letter in which they accuse him of ignoring the ‘mainstream majority of British Jews’. The letter, entitled ‘enough is enough’, says Corbyn personifies the form of politics that repeatedly fails to take antisemitism seriously, and says that ‘again and again, Jeremy Corbyn has sided with antisemites

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 22 March 2018

Spin doctors The BBC has denied it photoshopped a Newsnight backdrop to make Jeremy Corbyn’s hat look more Russian. The art of doctoring photos is, appropriately enough, often credited to the Bolsheviks. One photo of Lenin in 1920 had Trotsky and Kamenev edited out after they fell from favour. — Yet manipulating photos for political purposes really began 50 years earlier. One photo, an attempt to flatter Abraham Lincoln, had his head fixed on the body of a more shapely politician, John Colhoun. — A photo of Ulysses S. Grant inspecting his troops on horseback has been exposed as being made of three different images. Course work Graduate salary data

Toby Young Toby Young

If Corbyn wins, my escape route is clear

I’m currently in Israel on a press trip organised by Bicom — the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Bicom does a good job of getting experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to give talks to journalists and I’ve attended a few in their London offices. But this is the first time I’ve been on one of their legendary excursions to the Holy Land, which they organise about six times a year. In essence, you’re given a whistle-stop tour of the country while being briefed at every turn by senior ministers and officials on both sides of the divide. It’s seventh heaven for foreign policy nerds, but I also have another

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn shows why he shouldn’t stick to the script at PMQs

Brexit is going well, apparently. And the prime minister seemed in chipper mood at PMQs. She was even enjoying herself. To neutrals this is a distressing sight. To fans of the Tory leader it must seem downright dangerous. History has taught us that when May feels she’s on top the world, the world promptly lands on top of May. Corbyn raised council tax. His theme was Tory misrule, higher bills and vanishing services. Privatisation fetishists at Northamptonshire, he said, had caused the council to implode entirely. May felt herself on solid ground as she fought back by cataloguing Corbyn’s troubles at council level which have led to two recent Labour

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Can Corbyn keep up the pressure on May on council cuts?

Jeremy Corbyn had a good line of attack at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, choosing to focus on the financial crisis at Northamptonshire Council. When the Labour leader chooses a less-obvious topic, he has the benefit of surprise, but also the disadvantage of appearing to be avoiding talking about something more important. Today, though, Corbyn had also worked out a smart introductory question, which ended with him asking if what was happening at Northamptonshire was down to ‘incompetence at a local level of national level’. This was a difficult question for Theresa May to answer, as it would involve either criticising her own government, or suggesting that Tories weren’t very good

Steerpike Steerpike

Fact Check: Owen Jones’ hat-gate claim fails the test

This week the main political news in Labour has revolved around a hat. Rather than the Brexit transition period or Russian aggression, the issue that has kept the Corbynistas busy is whether or not Jeremy Corbyn’s hat was photoshopped on Newsnight. This was the claim made by Owen Jones on the show – when he accused the BBC of photoshopping a hat to make him look like a ‘Soviet stooge’. Since then the claim has gone viral – with Guido reporting a social media reach of over 2 million – despite repeated denials by the BBC. It’s also handily worked as a dead hat strategy – successfully distracting from Corbyn’s

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Why Jeremy Corbyn’s hat matters

What did you do this weekend? It seems a significant number of Jeremy Corbyn supporters spent it talking about a hat. The claim that Newsnight photoshopped a picture of Jeremy Corbyn so that he looked ‘more Russian’ has gone viral, earning tens of thousands of shares across Facebook and Twitter. The BBC actually photoshopped Jeremy Corbyn's hat to make it look more Russian for this smear on Newsnight. Let that sink in. The BBC is being used as an anti- #Labour propaganda machine. pic.twitter.com/IFrmhy2wCk — John Clarke (@JohnClarke1960) March 16, 2018 The BBC has had to deny photoshopping Corbyn’s hat to make it look bigger, which is a strange denial