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In reply to the discussion: Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, London Mayoral, Local Government and PCC elections [View all]LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)Last edited Sun May 1, 2016, 11:08 AM - Edit history (1)
(1) I do think the Labour party is in chaos.
(2) I also think that Ken chose a very bad time to spout a load of crap (indeed any time would have been a bad time for saying things like that!!!). In the past I've defended him against accusations of anti-Semitism; - but why in the Hell did he have to bring up Hitler in this context at all?!!!! Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic; plenty of Jews do; Netanyahu is an utter bastard; but going out of your way to associate early Zionism with Hitler was not on, especially in this context.
(3) At least Naz Shah apologized in a way that seemed to be sincere, and does seem to be engaging with the synagogue in her community; Ken just dug himself deeper and deeper into a hole, and seemed not to give a fuck. It's actually occurred to me that maybe he WANTS to sabotage his party at this point, at least in London - that maybe one thing that he has in common with Blair is that he'd rather have his party lose, than win under someone other than himself. Maybe I'm being tinfoilish about that, but certainly he's behaving in a very ugly way. I sometimes think that he and Boris have more in common than either would like to admit!
(4) The Tories and the press are hypocrites (well, that's hardly latest breaking news, I suppose). I haven't forgotten the xenophobic and sometimes at least borderline-anti-Semitic smear campaigns about Miliband and his family. Or Aidan Burley's Nazi-themed stag party. Or our future rulers in the Oxford University Conservative Association getting drunk and singing a song about dashing through the Reich, killing lots of K-words. Or the fact that the Tories choose to belong to a party grouping in the Euro-Parliament that includes the anti-Semitic and generally nasty Polish Right, in preference to the parties of Merkel, Sarkozy and other mainstream Euro-Conservatives.
(5) At least one silver lining is that the problem of anti-Semitism is becoming a subject of more awareness and condemnation. It should not, however, be specifically equated with the Labour Party (see (4)).
(6) Why mention George Galloway in this context? He is not Labour, so the Labour Party cannot be blamed for him! His only relevance to the case is that it was Naz Shah who defeated him. ETA: this is VERY tinfoilish, but I wouldn't actually rule out his having been in some way involved in getting the media informed about Naz's dubious pre-parliamentary posts!