Rats and Lord Archer's friend
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.
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Joshua
January 21st, 2008 2:13pmStephan Shakespeare (real name: Stephan Kukowski) was born in Germany and is of Polish origin. I suppose he must have learned this stuff at his mother's knee. On the subject of Jews and rats, T.S. Elliot had Goebbels beat by quite a few years. From "Sweeney Among the Nightingales" (1920): "The rats are underneath the piles./ the Jew is underneath the lot."
Ay Up
January 21st, 2008 3:27pmAn extraordinary post! You've utterly devalued your blog with such a spurious accusation.
Huw Thornton
January 21st, 2008 3:48pmHi Stephen - I agree totally with what you've put on the blog in the past about anti-semitic comments. Your stand is absolutely right and necessary. You only have to see threads on some other sites (eg CiF on the Guardian/Observer) to see how anti-semitism is creeping into the mainstream. For example, look at the current debate on Nick Cohen's article about Ken Livingstone (20 January). But your article here leaves me a little mystified. As I read it, Stephan Shakespeare wrote that he "smelt a rat" rather than accusing Daniel Finkelstein of being a rat. Even if he had accused DF of being a rat (which I agree would be enormously insulting)it seems from the outside to be straining things somewhat to bring in the horrors of Der ewige Jude into the discussion. Am I missing something?
Ay Up
January 21st, 2008 4:10pmAn astonishing post which devalues your normally astute blog.
Recusant
January 21st, 2008 4:31pmStephen, oh Stephen. You've descended to the level of Joshua. What Shakespeare had to say was not very smart, and not thought through, but to even hint that he was hinting at Danny's Jewishness. Joshua may be a troll for Combat 18, but you don't have to imitate him.
Ay Up
January 21st, 2008 6:55pmSorry, can you paste in the comments what phrase you used to explicitly say you weren't accusing him of being anisemitic? Your post as I read it, three times, was accusing him of just that.
Max Kaye
January 21st, 2008 6:56pmThis is getting silly. Calling someone a 'rat', a 'former jobber for the left', a 'careerist' and a 'chameleon' has absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism. There is enough blatant antisemitism around without needing to imagine stuff.
Most of these descriptions aptly fit, say, both Peter Mandelson (of Jewish ancestry) and Peter Hain (no Jewish ancestry so far as I know - or care).
So are we to be denied the pleasure of calling anyone a rat in case they are Jewish and we are accused of antisemitism? This is discrimination!
Lee Jakeman
January 21st, 2008 8:42pmAnti-semitism is a form of generalising and adds up to saying "the exception is the rule" - which is scientifically absurd, which is why anti-semites are despised by Jews. The reason why some Jews like Joshua are unpopular with "goys" like me is not because they're Jewish but because they themselves are always generalising - about gentiles. "Stephan Shakespeare (real name: Stephan Kukowski) was born in Germany and is of Polish origin. I suppose he must have learned this stuff at his mother's knee." Yes, and anti-semites "suppose" similar things about Jews. "On the subject of Jews and rats, T.S. Elliot had Goebbels beat by quite a few years." So what? Does T.S Eliot speak for all English people? Practically everything Joshua writes is based on his own precept of Jewish moral and intellectual superiority over the gentile. Prejudice is prejudice - and prejudice means to "pre-judge". The kind of Jews who are liked and respected by non-Jews are people like Daniel Finkelstein and Stephen Pollard. Why? Because they don't have the same PRESUMPTION about other peoples' character, based on what they are rather than what they've done. Joshua sounds like he has a 2000 year old chip on his shoulder.
Michael N
January 21st, 2008 10:32pmSo, let's get this straight. You explicitly are not accusing Mr Shakespeare of being an anti-Semite, or of intending anti-Semitism in his article; so what IS your post saying? Is it saying that certain derogatory words or phrases which are commonly used against others must never be used against someone who happens to be Jewish? Or are you saying that the potential of certain words to be taken as anti-Semitic precludes their use even when someone as nuanced and as astute as you can explicitly decry any anti-Semitic intent behind them? Why? In case a genuine anti-Semite takes pleasure from them? What if a columnist who is Jewish happens to behave in a manner that might reasonably be described as "chameleon-like" in a non-Jew? I think this post is worrying, Mr Pollard, and I'm usually in agreement with everything you write regarding anti-Semitism. As for the predictably stupid Joshua, that tedious white-supremacist troll, he's right of course: that line from Anglo-American poet T.S. Eliot accurately reflects the precise thought patterns of every single human who has ever held either a British or an American passport... Thank goodness that Joshua's moral and intellectual imbecility does not reflect in the same way the depth or breadth of thought to expected from the average Jew.
Dr. Irene Lancaster
January 22nd, 2008 12:11pmI've posted on this here: http://irenelancaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/open-season-on.html
szeni
January 22nd, 2008 12:14pmI doubt that 'rat', 'chameleon' etc would make the top 10 names anti-Semites use. And incidently, just the other day, an Israeli cabinet minister called Hezbollah's Nasrallah a 'sewer rat'. I think while Stephan's writing was in bad taste, Stephen's reaction was slightly paranoid