Anti-Semitism

How do we have public conversations in the age of rage? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 15th 2018 Has the world of politics and public life ever been so messed up? And at a time of global confusion, disruption and challenge when intelligent politics is more needed than ever before. British politics in the last week has seen stormy arguments over the rights and wrongs of Tory Boris Johnson and his comments about Muslim women wearing the burka. At the same time, Labour’s discomfort and problems over anti-semitism, which I wrote about last week, refuses to go away, continuing to

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Labour’s problem with anti-semitism matters for our democracy Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 8th 2018 It is truly a summer of madness; think of the challenges facing the UK, Europe and the world. What has been convulsing the British Labour Party all through this trying, testing times? Namely, the issue of anti-semitism. This hasn’t come from nowhere. Jeremy Corbyn has been leader of Labour for three years, and for this entire period this issue has been a running sore. There was Ken Livingstone and his remarks on ‘when Hitler was supporting Zionism’, there was the Shami Chakrabarti review into

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The Left’s Big Problem: Ken Livingstone and talking about Hitler and the Jews Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 12th 2017 These are dark days for British Labour. Much worse than 1983 - or the 1950s. Only the shock of 1931 comes anywhere near to the present malaise when the party was betrayed by former Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald going off with the Tories. Labour is heading for the rocks, irrelevance and ridicule. The only things holding it up are the even more self-destructive behaviour of UKIP, and the workings of the First Past the Post electoral system which

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