Boris deserves new bike
IF ANYONE else deserves praise it is Boris Johnson.A mere backbencher earlier this year, his career has soared – becoming PM, winning a rancorous election and hastening through his Brexit withdrawal bill.
All these are great accomplishments in their own right. But Mr Johnson knows that his work starts here and that he must now deliver the change the country needs.
As one of his priorities is to deliver public services, in yesterday’s Christmas message he paid tribute to the “selfless” work of NHS staff, police, public servants and our servicemen and women.
He also spent time helping at a homeless charity and announced a £260million boost to combat rough sleeping.
On the global front, he acknowledged the under-reported problem of Christians around the world facing persecution.
Being Boris Johnson, his sense of humour came to the fore in an oblique message about Brexit, urging families to “try not to have too many arguments”.
And he revealed his hopes for a Christmas present: a new bicycle. Some will scoff – we say he deserves it.
EACH of us has to think about the words we use in day to day life – how we describe people and how we refer to them. Some 50 years ago, for example, the “N” word was in common use. But now no one but a full-on racist would dream of using such a word.
Certainly, we have moved on as a society. Once, the apparent racist behaviour from some in the crowd at Chelsea’s Premier League win at Tottenham last weekend would not have inflamed public comment.
Now we have such limited tolerance of this repellent racism that the game was stopped after Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger complained that he heard monkey noises – the infamous terrace insult to black players – and the Professional Footballers’ Association has called for a government inquiry. I was at the game as a Spurs fan, and mortified to discover what had happened.
We may pat ourselves on the back that explicit racism is taboo in the UK. But bigoted attitudes can find expression in more casual ways.Which brings me to something close to home.
I’m proud to write for the Daily Express. It’s a paper that understands its readers and the issues facing the country, and almost always makes the right call.
LIKE all of us, though, it sometimes makes a mistake. We’re only human, and one was in the paper two days after the election.As I was reading the analysis, I saw a headline that made me wince.
There are few more pernicious ideas than supposed Jewish control of the world, whether it’s banking, the media, or politics. It’s a theme Jew haters have used for centuries.
Over the past four years since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, the idea of Jewish control of politics has driven a flood of posts on social media. As editor of the Jewish Chronicle, I have been sent thousands of such anti-Semitic tweets. So when I saw the headline, I thought how it played straight into that racist caricature.
The Daily Express has been steadfast in exposing the antiSemitism that has spread within the Labour Party. The headline was clearly a mistake. That I am now being given this slot to explain how racism can creep into daily life shows how seriously the paper takes it. But it does show how carefully we all have to tread when writing or talking about any ethnic group.
Lumping any minority together as if they’re all the same is wrong. References to “Muslim terrorists” imply that all Muslims are terrorists.When an Islamist extremist carries out an atrocity, it’s vital that’s how they are described, rather than the catch-all “Muslim”.
There are other words which can be offensive if used in the wrong context. “Queer” and “dyke” have been reclaimed by gay people from being insults.
But if you’re not gay and use them, you’re being insulting.
There is nothing insulting about the word “Jew”. And the article in the Daily Express correctly pointed out that constituencies such as Bury South and Bury North, which previously had Labour MPs and which have a relatively large Jewish population, turned Tory.
Clearly, with 87 per cent of British Jews saying in a recent poll that they regard Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite, the majority of Jews there will have voted to stop Labour winning.
BUT IT could not have been just the Jewish vote which stopped Labour winning. Prestwich, within Bury South, has the second-largest Jewish population of any town in the UK – and overall there are about 9,000 Jews of voting age who make up just 10 per cent of the electorate. There simply aren’t enough Jews in Britain overall, or in any individual constituency, to make such an impact.
When I’m speaking to a nonJewish audience I often ask how many Jews they think there are in the UK. Usually people suggest two or three million. In fact, there are just 263,346. Even in Finchley and Golders Green, the constituency with the largest Jewish population, Jews only comprise 21 per cent of voters.
The reality is that Labour’s problem with anti-Semitism led many people to shun the party. As election after election always shows, the British people do not like extremists. It’s unlikely that anti-Semitism was a deciding factor for more than a small number – but was part of the overall picture of Mr Corbyn as an extremist. It helped make Labour toxic – and gave the Tories’ their win.
So in this season of goodwill, let’s reflect awhile on our use of language – and continue to be a society that is vigilant about bigotry, wherever we find it.