Israel row embroils Labour, again

Labour are all too keen to present themselves as a completely new party these days. So Keir Starmer must be pretty annoyed at one of his more hard-of-thinking MPs for reminding voters that there are plenty of Corbynistas still sat on the Opposition benches. At Prime Ministers’ Questions today, Kim Johnson – one of a handful of ‘Corbyn’s kids’ selected under his leadership – used her 30 seconds in the spotlight to launch an attack on the ‘fascist Israeli government’ and its ‘apartheid’ policies.

Surprisingly, Sunak did not use his reply to condemn this intemperate use of language. But plenty of others watching now have, noting that Johnson’s language comes less than a week after Holocaust Memorial Day and caused barely a flinch on the Labour benches. It’s a particularly sensitive matter too because Johnson was selected to replace Louise Ellman as the MP for Liverpool Riverside – before the latter quit the party over antisemitism.