A rally hijacked

Our columnist David Aaronovitch this week points to an important irony of our times.

“Who’d have thought”, he asks, “that one day I’d count Prince Charles as a reliable ally, and ‘anti-racist’ campaigners as anything but?”

Last month’s so-called vigil against antisemitism in Hampstead, north London, was one of the most appalling spectacles foisted on our community in recent years.

A group of assorted Socialist Worker Party supporters and fellow travelers used the appearance of antisemitic graffiti the previous weekend as an excuse to push their political agenda, staging a rally addressed by, among others, Trotskyites who have either excused left-wing antisemitism and even some who actively pushed it.

Those who attended the rally in the mistaken belief that it was a genuine communal demonstration against antisemitism were disgusted and shocked by some of the speeches.

Few things better illustrate the depth of the crisis facing the left that these political activists have been able to invert the very meaning of anti-racism. No one should be fooled by them.

Sad way to end

Any death at 52 is a tragedy.

The death of the journalist and writer Elizabeth Wurtzel from metastatic breast cancer is doubly so for her having found out so late that she had the BRCA genetic mutation. Had she been tested earlier a mastectomy might have prolonged her life.

She spent the months afterwards urging other women to be tested. So, too, does this newspaper.