A helpful suggestion for Taylor Swift’s boyfriends

Sir Mark Rowley should not resign. We must try to break our habit of getting rid of each Metropolitan Police Commissioner before his/her term is complete. He has done nothing iniquitous or seriously incompetent. He is, however, systematically wrong about the right to protest, elevating it over the much more important right of the general public to own the streets. His parlaying with self-appointed Muslim community leaders privileges them. The weekly Gaza marches in London are effectively mobile no-go areas. This was confirmed by the altercation between Gideon Falter and the police sergeant who told him he was ‘openly Jewish’. It was true that Mr Falter had willed such an encounter, but what happened proved his point and disproved the Met’s claim that the marches are essentially peaceful. They are hate-filled and when significant numbers of marchers see someone they hate – for example, any Jew – the police believe they will be become violent, hence the officer’s warning to Mr Falter. It is not ‘tolerant’ to allow such intolerance. But I hope the awful phrase ‘openly Jewish’ can be put to good use. I keep thinking that more should be done to mobilise Gentiles who support Jews in their current plight. On a ‘Je suis Charlie’ principle, how about an organisation called Openly Jewish which brings Jews and Gentiles together in the same cause?

In the Daily Telegraph, John Simpson defends his employer, the BBC, from the charge of bias over Israel/Gaza. He says: ‘Did you see the interview on one BBC programme when a leading Hamas figure was asked how he could justify “killing people as they sleep”?’ The Hamas man stormed out of the studio. ‘I didn’t hear any complaints about the BBC’s lack of impartiality then,’ says Simpson. Well, yes, I suppose if I had been the Hamas chap, I would have been quite annoyed.