Uk politics

Labour has been embroiled in a summer long row about anti-Semitism, with no sign that the issue will be resolved any time soon. Yet according to Ken Livingstone, there is only one man for the job of tackling anti-Semitism across Britain: Jeremy Corbyn. In an interview on Sky News – in which Ken, once again, talked about Hitler – the former mayor of London had this to say: ‘I’d be prepared to bet you now 100 quid that once we get a Jeremy Corbyn government, by the end of that government, anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia will all have declined quite significantly.’ If Corbyn's attempts to resolve the anti-Semitism debate in his own party is anything to go on, Mr S isn't convinced...

It is quite clear what today's NEC results mean for the Corbynites in the Labour Party: they've consolidated their control over the party structures. All the candidates who won were backed by Momentum, apart from Peter Willsman, who had seen the Corbynite grassroots organisation drop its support after a recording emerged of him making anti-Semitic comments. Willsman pushed moderate candidate Eddie Izzard out and will remain on the party's ruling body. Izzard and 'independent left-winger Ann Black' came 10th and 13th respectively. Less clear is the implication for that rather nebulous group of anti-Corbynites generally known as 'the moderates'.

Why does Jeremy Corbyn show such disdain for the mainstream Jewish community? Why does he prefer to associate with terrorist “friends” in Hamas and Hezbollah? And why does the Corbyn clique now in charge of Labour insist on diluting the internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism? The fact is that – despite its own boasts about “anti-racism” – the far-left has had a longstanding problem with Jews, and not just with “Zionists.” This problem pre-dates 1844, when Karl Marx published On The Jewish Question; but Marx’s essay is a good place to start. In On the Jewish Question, Marx tied up Jews with capitalism: “What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money....

It can be hard adjusting to life after high office. One minute you're one of the most powerful people in the country, the next, people are struggling to even remember your name. It’s not something that usually affects Boris Johnson, who is accustomed to spending time in the limelight even after he’s left high-profile positions. But it appears his stardom outside the UK might already be waning. Despite Boris visiting the country only last year, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta is already struggling to remember who he is. In a press conference alongside Theresa May this afternoon he recalled the visit, saying: ‘Last year, if you recall, the Foreign Secretary then, Boris...erm...Boris, Boris...Johnson. The bicycle guy, that one’ https://twitter.

I truly love the SNP and the wider independence movement in Scotland. They have been the defining commitment of my life. But today I have written to the National Secretary of the party resigning my membership. I read carefully Nicola Sturgeon's statement on Sunday and watched her television interview of a couple of days ago. She made it clear that the SNP have never received a single complaint about my personal conduct in my many decades of membership. And the Scottish Government have confirmed that they did not have any such complaint before this January, more than three years after I left office as first minister. That is the record of 30 years of public service. So let me be clear again. I refute these two complaints of harassment and I absolutely reject any suggestion of criminality.