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REVISED POST: I've thought about this post, and I have changed it to explain better what I mean. Originally some people read it to mean I was accusing Stephan Shakespeare of antisemitism - weirdly, given I stated explicitly that I was not. I was accusing him, rather, of being remarkably stupid, because his language in attacking Daniel Finkelstein involved some absolute classic antimsemitic caricatures - unintentionally, I'm sure - directed against a prominent Jewish columnist.
Daniel Finkelstein rightly, albeit with great restraint, describes this post by Stephan Shakespeare as "remarkably undignified". As Daniel puts it, he:calls me a "rat", a "former jobber for the left", a "careerist" (uh?) and a "chameleon". Among other things.Mr Shakespeare has managed to combine some of the most common antisemitic insults - a rat, a left wing infiltrator and a shape shifter - in one post. About a prominent Jew.
As anyone even remotely educated in twentieth century history would surely know, Goebbels' film Der ewige Jude showed Jews as rats. As the film put it:[R]ats … have followed men like parasites from the very beginning … They are cunning, cowardly and fierce, and usually appear in large packs. In the animal world they represent the element of subterranean destruction. Rats, it went on, occupied a positionnot dissimilar to the place that Jews have among men.Still, it's pretty clear from the argument of his post that Mr Shakespeare is perhaps not quite up there with this century's most towering intellects, so we can reasonably assume that he wasn't aware of the connotations of his insults.
As Daniel points out:Hilariously, in a sentence about intellectual dishonesty he hasn't correctly represented my argument. What I actually said was this:
Always an automatic crowd-pleaser in the past, it [tax cuts] isn't working quite as reliably as it used to. John Howard, for instance, lost in Australia despite his promises.
This is simply a fact. But it is one that many don't wish to acknowledge. Why? Because they are absolutely, but incorrectly, convinced that making an upfront tax cut promises (that is specific promises to cut the overall tax burden by a set amount) is a run away winner.
Any fact that gets in the way of this argument is denied. It is frequently, and ridiculously, asserted, for instance, that William Hague and Michael Howard didn't really campaign to cut taxes.
Here though is the kicker - one of the reasons why the upfront tax cuts promise wouldn't work electorally is that that making such a promise would be wrong. In other words you can't simply separate electoral and principled considerations.
Conservatives have gone to the country twice promising to net off tax cuts in the first budget against extremely shaky savings proposals. This did not amount to a proper strategy for lowering tax. And I doubt very much the ability of an opposition party to create a robust budget while out of power.
This, incidentally, was a major reason why Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe did not make such a promise.
I usually think it's wise to judge people by the company they keep. And that says it all.
UPDATE: I'm told that Stephan Shakespeare is on the board of Conservative Friends of Israel, and hasn't a trace of antisemitism in him (although I was clear that I assumed he wasn't aware of the connotations of his insults).
Good. Although that makes his words even more stupid a choice.
FURTHER UPDATE: Tim Montgomerie appears unable to read English, so it's no surprise that his comments on the 'Finkelstein-Shakespeare' row are so off beam. Mr Montogemerie is, he writes:
disgusted by Stephen Pollard's rush to Danny's defence by throwing about accusations of anti-Semitism. A nought to 100mph rush to slur someone like that is contemptible.
My words above are clear. I pointed out that Shakespeare's post contains a variety of the most classic antisemitic insults (not just 'rat'). It does. In black and white. There's simply no denying that.
I did not say that he is an antisemite. Indeed, I pointed out that in my view he is probably too dense to have realised what he was doing.
Given that he is apparently a strong supporter of Israel, it simply makes him appear to be even more dense.