Red Ken's graceless fall onto Jewish eggshells

[mtbc]

The left-wing Labour politician Ken Livingstone has been suspended from the party, though not yet expelled, for his comments regarding Hitler and the Jewish Question. The criticism has been very much under the banner of not tolerating anti-Semitism and this appears to continue through the party leader Jeremy Corbyn's new investigation into Ken's conduct. While I am all for the rooting out of anti-Semites, my ongoing impression is that Ken is far more ham-handed than he is positively evil: he may not be carefully articulating a consensus historical record but I think it takes a considerable dose of whatever the opposite of benefit of the doubt is to read him as actually racist in this case. Given that, from my point of view the Labour Party's keenness to keep the matter alive brings the party into disrepute more than Ken ever has: it starts to look more like a witch hunt that distracts from and devalues real action against anti-Semitism.

Curious to double-check my impressions, I was surprised and reassured to find online that various groups, including of some Jewish Labour Party members, appear to agree. I caught myself wondering if Jeremy Corbyn is going along with this continued investigation because his advisers are being lobbied by those who too eagerly show offense. More generally, I fear that if politicians are made to worry greatly about putting their feet in their mouths then their public face becomes as uselessly bland as the typical British politician's now is.