One item this morning, lifted from the Daily Mail, was about the anti-Semitic row in the Labour Party. On which I offer two thoughts.
First, I think it shows how unsuitable an old trouble maker like Corbyn is to be leader, however decent a lot of his instincts might be - he just does not seem to know how to put this row to bed. I might not have cared for Blair, but I can't see him getting into a pickle of this sort.
Second, I wonder how much of this row has been stirred up by provocateurs, perhaps from one of those sheds full of Facebook trouble makers said to exist on the outskirts of Moscow. One can see that Putin might - rather short-sightedly - think that weakening Corbyn vis-à-vis May was good, rather as he might have thought that weakening Clinton vis-à-vis Trump was good. And anti-Semitism was certainly alive and well in this country between the two world wars and lots of otherwise respectable authors allowed themselves language in this connection, which while not terribly anti-Semitic, would not be allowed now. But it all seems terribly old-speak. I might care a lot about what is going on in what used to be called Palestine, but I don't care at all about what sort of church anyone goes to, beyond thinking that going to any sort of church in this day and age is a bit odd. And I don't know anyone who does care, at least not to my knowledge. Who are all these people?
PS: Simenon is another reasonably respectable author who allows himself language which would not be allowed now. Which gets me to wondering whether part of the reason that he was in trouble with the French authorities after the second war was that his books carried on being translated into German, and earning him royalties from Germany, for the duration?
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