‘grinning ringletted guards’

Presumably, Marshall-Andrews thought this was a cute way to refer to the participation of Orthodox Jewish males in the IDF. (Curly hair ain’t entirely unknown among non-Jewish Palestinians, Druze and Bedouines.)

@Stan: These politicians are completely wrong about I/P so why trust their instincts on how Moslems in their constituencies vote? It is a part of their argument that Britain’s foreign policy is the cause of Moslem youth alienation (different from your ordinary white male teenage/twenties alienation).
Therefore they must vote on I/P issues.

There’s no evidence as far as I know, but it plays well with some of the constituency parties. They’d rather hear ‘change the foreign policy’ than ‘do more canvassing’.

@Josh – Hatred and passion sound the same to some, I guess, and in an age where ideology is not at the forefront of politics (if it ever was outside of revolutions and coups), that passion indicates that a politician believes in something. Another good reason why antisemitism is the socialism of fools.

The fact is that though NuLabour has been courageous in its policies
on Iraq/Afghanistan, it has an anti semitic fringe which is respected
because it brands itself “Left”.
That fringe could easily join the BNP, except that the BNP is anti EU,
& the EU sends aid to Israel’s enemies, so it stays in Labour &
befouls the party.
To the “Left” everything in the world is either Left or Right, labelled
good or bad from the moment it is so branded.
At the heart of Labour is a terrible conflict.
How to square the circle between the common decency of supporting
Israel while obtaining votes from sections of society who hate Jews,
& at the same time have been cultivated, even deliberately imported by Labour.

to speak of the “nature” of a collectivity is to speak of something immutable and therefore impossible to rehabilitate. Marshall-Andrews has in fact racialized his collective subject much as would any biological racist of their collective subject since Galton.

Very well put!

A very good point.

What needs to be made more of is that the overwhelming number of mass ballot rigging cases, especially with the rig prone postal ballot, which Labour are more than happy to maintain, are committed by Muslims.

For reasons it would take too long to elucidate here, I find this a very intriguing part of Marshall Andrews speech in this post by habibi – and well done her/him.

Marshall Andrews has been a useful stick with which to beat Labour over at least the last decade, wheeled on to radio and television at any opportunity as a sort of comic who could be relied upon to be against his own government in full motley and Blair in particular. His fatuous commentaries have been swallowed in mirth unchallenged. A certain gift for self deprecation and the greater one of a comedian’s woe-be-gone face have ensured his presence where his intellect could not.

Dear AoS. You may not from where you live have noticed that Labout is also fielding an army against the Taleban despite growing public dislike for the campaign. How clever then would it be, an election looming, to announce the troops are coming home tomorrow? Given the low opinion you have of them, why don’t the Labour government do this? Not as clever as Mr Marshall Andrews terrorists?