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One stupid tweet by Owen Jones confirms all you need to know about the hard left

In his cynical hypocrisy, the Corbynite cheerleader confirms all we know about the hard left

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May 04, 2020 09:34

It seems I have been outed.

For the past 4 and a half years, I've spent most of my waking hours thinking about Labour antisemitism and Jeremy Corbyn. I've exposed it, I've attacked it and I've vilified it. But here's the catch. In order to do all of that, I've had to read it. I've spent hour upon hour reading the writings of antisemites. I've read the tweets, the Facebook posts, the articles, the books. 

Now the truth is out. I have given the game away. Far from being an opponent of Labour antisemitism, I've secretly got a soft spot for it. I must have, you see. Because I've been reading it.

Last night, erstwhile Corbyn cheerleader Owen Jones posted this on Twitter: 

"Why does Michael Gove and his wife own a copy of a book by David Irving, one of the most notorious Holocaust deniers on earth"

(Incidentally, don't you just love that 'and his wife'? As if Sarah Vine, an accomplished journalist, is some sort of appendage. So typical of the hard left.)

The implication was clear - that there is something very dodgy about reading a book by a man like Irving. In other words, if you read it, you clearly have some sort of sympathy with the views. 

Blimey. If that's how it works, I am beyond redemption. As well as two books by Irving, I've got a book by the actual Adolf Hitler on my shelves - not to mention Mao and - here's where it gets really bad - I also have speeches by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

I credit Jones with more intelligence than this, though. I've  got his own excellent book, Chavs, on my shelf. And it's clear that he knows full well that in order to critique a view you reject you have to have read it. Jones is well aware that  owning a book by someone whose views you despise means only that you own a book by someone whose views you despise.

Ordinarily, yet another stupid tweet by the likes of Jones is not worth spending a second analysing. But it's precisely because Jones knows this that his tweet is worth examining. Because it confirms yet again the full cynical hypocrisy of his cadre of Corbynite left. As we have seen repeatedly, they will smear and impugn with impunity anyone who stands in their way. It is their only modus operandi.

Here's the thing, you see. Michael Gove has probably done more for Holocaust education and the Jewish community in Britain than any senior politician other than Gordon Brown. It's obvious to anyone why he would have read the work of a Holocaust denier.

Owen Jones, on the other hand, was an actual cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn - a man described by one of his own MPs as a "racist antisemite". If Jones had his way, that same Jeremy Corbyn would be in Number Ten right now. 

Twitter can be annoying, infuriating and sometimes plain pointless. But sometimes it can reveal truths. And in one stupid tweet last night, Owen Jones confirmed a truth about himself and his fellow hard left travellers: that their true ideology is hypocrisy.

May 04, 2020 09:34

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