I've been following the Ken Livingstone / Evening Standard reporter saga with some interest. Unreconstructed he may be, but Mr Livingstone is a proper socialist and I do admire him for that.
And he has the guts to take on what can seem like unwinnable fights. A bit like the McLibel Two: you know you're right, and you might lose in the end but so many people will see you die trying that the other side will look pretty stupid and wish they'd never started it.
Today he has splendidly announced that he has thought about it really really hard and decided that he still isn't going to apologise to the Daily Mail Group.
I quote:
"No one in Britain is less qualified to complain about anti-Semitism. In truth, those papers were the leading advocate of anti-Semitism in the country for half a century."
He said that while it is true the Daily Mail has moved on from anti-Semitism, it now targets asylum seekers and Muslims.
"For the Mail group the victims may change but the intolerance, hatred and fear pervade every issue of the papers."
I second that emotion.
An aside, the Hebrew word for 'yes' is pronounced 'ken'. The first time we went to Israel, my mum kept looking around and saying 'who is this bloke Ken they keep talking about?'
joella
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