The age of absolutism

A Labour MP was prevented from visiting a school in his constituency because the teaching unions and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign do not like the fact that he believes Israel should have a right to exist. The MP in question is Damien Egan, who represents Bristol North East and who is vice-chairman of the Labour Friends of Israel caucus – or, as it is almost certainly referred to within the party, Labour Friends of Genocide. We haven’t heard from Egan just yet – perhaps he is less cross about it than I am, or simply doesn’t want to make a fuss. The school in question is the Bristol Brunel Academy, the principal of which is a woman called Jen Cusack who should, of course, be sacked.

We know of this story only because Steve Reed, the Communities Secretary, who describes himself as a Zionist, mentioned it during an address to the Jewish Labour Movement, without naming Egan. Reed said of the people who had scuppered Egan’s visit: ‘They will be called in, and they will be held to account for doing that, because you cannot have people with those kinds of attitudes teaching our children.’

Well, Steve, there’s people with those kinds of attitudes teaching our children in pretty much every school in the country, save for a few free schools and some of those in the private sector, both of which you lot wish to abolish. In fact I cannot think of a single occupation more likely to be stocked with these pig-ignorant dunderheads than teaching, a calling which they gravitate towards because they are useless at everything else and also to acquire a soupçon of power which is otherwise wholly absent from their wretched, impotent lives.

Do you remember when teachers were clever, or some of them, at least? That was a long time ago. Just watch how they perform on quiz shows: denser than a block of tungsten and deprived of even the slenderest vestiges of general knowledge. They are also the bedrock of the Labour vote (as they once were the Tory vote), apart from those who are even more stupid and vote Green.

Anyway, the intimation was that Egan’s visit was cancelled because it might upset the teachers, not the kids. Bristol’s branch of the NEU (not the rather good German krautrock band, but our main teaching union) said: ‘We celebrate this cancellation as a win for safeguarding, solidarity and for the power of the NEU trade union staff group, parents and campaigners standing together.’ Safeguarding indeed: the sooner we banish this word from our lexicon, the better.

Meanwhile, the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: ‘This is a clear message: politicians who openly support Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza are not welcome in our schools. Egan is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel and has visited Israel since the current onslaught on Gaza began, demonstrating his support.’ What an odious organisation – as averse to the principles and values of our country as it is possible to get. Monomaniacal in its hatred of Israel and anyone who might defend its existence. There is no evidence whatsoever, incidentally, that Egan has said anything in support of the Israeli government. It is simply enough that he supports the existence of Israel.

You might hope that this adolescent petulance, self-righteousness and pomposity was simply a preserve of the Dim Left. Trouble is, it isn’t. The kind of hyperbolic, catch-all denunciations you get from the NEU and the PSC are beginning to catch on with the right, so that at times the two sides stand polarised, screaming their abuse and trying to get people cancelled, and from a neutral point of view it is a little difficult to tell them apart.

I assume you are largely with me on my views about the banning of Egan. But I wonder if you are still with me regarding the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’s latest little temper strop? This was occasioned when it was discovered that a recently evicted contestant in that godawful BBC show The Traitors had some years ago delivered himself of opinions which were certainly anti-Zionist and were also either anti-Semitic or close to it. Marzook Bana, aged 59, a retired copper from Preston, said: ‘Nazis all over again, the oppressed have become the oppressors! The Zionist [sic] have short memories of what Hitler did. Never again they said! The world’s political leaders should be ashamed of themselves of being subservient to ISRAEL!’

OK, so Bana is an idiot. I would go further and say there are far too many people with views like Bana’s in this country. I also find The Traitors so breast-beatingly self-regarding, wrapped up in its own confected importance, that I have only to catch a glimpse of Claudia Winkleman and the bile begins to rise in my throat. But whatever; Bana apologised for his comments and incidentally said nothing during filming which betrayed that he held these views.

However, in a spittle-flecked diatribe, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism said: ‘An apology should be aired during the next episode for his inclusion, and the senior BBC staff responsible for overseeing this programme should be hauled before the House of Commons culture select committee to account for this latest outrage.’

Oh, please, spare us. Why should the BBC apologise for something that an ordinary member of the public said five years ago and which has nothing whatsoever to do with the show he was on? This is, for me, a very long way down the list of things the BBC should apologise for.

And it is that same hyperbolic absolutism we saw with the unions and the PSC: look, here is my enemy. Deny him a voice, persecute him and anyone who even accidentally associates with him. It is the language once again of totalitarianism, and it should embarrass all of us who have given the organisation support in its justifiable fight against anti-Semitism.