OPINION – VIRGINIA BLACKBURN: We’ve already seen where this horror ends up and we cannot let it happen again.
Virginia Blackburn calls out rampant antisemitism in the UK (Image: Getty)
As a child, when I learned about the horrors of the Holocaust, I stupidly thought that that would be the end of antisemitism, now that people had seen where it ended up. I could not have been more wrong. Just a couple of days ago Jewish volunteer ambulances were set on fire in what the authorities are calling an “apparent” antisemitic attack. Apparent? A person with a brain the size of a pea could work out what is going on here.
Meanwhile, an exhibition entitled Drawings Against Genocide, the irony appears to be lost on the ghastly artist responsible, Matthew Collings, featured Jewish people as demons, some of them eating babies – an utterly grotesque re-enaction of the blood libel. Some people seem to get prosecuted these days for nasty remarks on social media, but so far, re Collings, nada. If this isn’t a hate crime, I don’t know what is.
These are just the latest appalling attacks on the Jewish community and yet nothing is being done to help. The utterly useless PM has droned on about how horrific and deeply shocking this is and yet he is the man who campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister when he was encouraging the flow of antisemitic bile throughout the party.
And what is particularly horrible is the way that the Jewish community is somehow being represented not only as the ones with all the power, but that they are bringing it on themselves.
This is the real evil running rampant in our society directed at a religious group and it is up to every decent person in the country to stand up and shout that this is not happening in our name. The people responsible for all this should feel the full force of the law.
We saw where this all ended 80 years ago. We cannot and must not allow it to happen again.
You know what they say, Nicole!
Nicole Kidman proves an age-old saying (Image: Getty)
Nicole Kidman is said to have become close to her co-star Simon Baker, much to the chagrin of her estranged husband Keith Urban. You go, girl. You know what they say: the best way to get over one man is to get under another.
We must adopy this American custom immediately
As mentioned last week I have just spent some time in the very fine United States of America and came across a custom we should adopt here immediately. Almost all the museums, galleries and so on have special low entrance fees for American military personnel.
On a tour around Savannah, the guide asked: “Anyone here serve in the military?” One man had and several of our group turned to him and said, “Thank you for your service.”
In this wretched country (don’t shout, the UK is still the best in the world), we tell soldiers not to wear their uniforms in public in case they get attacked and threaten them with prosecution for decisions taken decades ago in the heat of battle.
The way we treat our ex-servicemen is a national scandal and in this, if nothing else, we should follow the lead of the United States right now.
How has Fergie managed this one?
Sarah Ferguson has achieved the impossible: she has made the Sussexes look like a pair of hardworking level-headed business people.
Clone the late Queen’s corgis on reality TV for dosh? Is she having a giraffe? Of all the totally asinine proposals from what purports to be that silly woman’s brain, this takes the biscuit. Or rather, the dog biscuit. Ruff!
It’s far too soon for this farewell
And so farewell then, Jenni Murray, a great broadcaster and campaigner for women’s rights. She died aged 75, far too young in this day and age. Aside from our natural grief at her death, we mourn the time we missed her on the airwaves after she was forced out of the BBC.
Far too many people have to retire young these days, especially if they are a woman and especially if they are a woman working for the Beeb. It saps their life force. RIP Jenni. Auntie was lucky to have you while she did.
More bovine stupidity on display
Just when you thought some common sense was returning to the ludicrous trans debate, up pops some narcissist to prove you are wrong.
Following the outcry over the appointment of a trans woman, Steph Richards, as the CEO of an endometriosis society, the person in question has said: “It is fundamentally inaccurate to say only women can suffer. This condition affects people of all genders and everything. Please spread love.”
This not only reeks of bovine stupidity and arrogance, but it is patently obviously untrue. Only someone with a uterus – those people who used to be called women – can suffer from endometriosis and I, for one, am beginning to feel personally insulted by all this absurd posturing.
Can you imagine the outcry if a biological woman said that anyone could suffer from prostate cancer? Can these people finally shut up?
This week’s quote
“I never feel more alone than when I’m trying to put sunscreen on my back” – Jimmy Kimmel
The sins of the father…
It is said that the marriages of Beatrice and Eugenie York may be in trouble: I had wondered. Their husbands thought they were marrying into the oldest and most prestigious monarchy in the world, only to have total disgrace brought on their branch of it by their father-in-law. The sins of the father shall be visited on the children. Never a truer word.