𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The Isle of Thanet, where my wife and I have lived for almost 20 years, is associated with some of the finest works of art in British history. It was this remote corner of east Kent that inspired T S Eliot to write The Waste Land, Turner to produce some of his most evocative seascapes and Dickens to pen his great novel Bleak House. But a new exhibition in Margate by the artist and broadcaster Matthew Collings will not be joining this roll-call of excellence. Entitled “Drawings Against Genocide”, the show is packed with antisemitic imagery so savage that it could have straight out of Nazi Germany.

Collings’ puerile, sometimes pornographic, scrawls are devoid of any merit but exude a venomous hatred of the Jews, who are depicted as lethal monsters with a thirst for blood and a taste for flesh. Visiting Margate last weekend, Zoe Strimpel, the distinguished newspaper columnist, described the show as “the most disgusting” she had ever seen. This scandal was worsened by the disgraceful stance of the Labour-run Thanet District, which actually promoted the exhibition on the tourism pages of its website.

Following a public outcry, this supportive online post was finally withdrawn this week but the stench of municipal hypocrisy remains. The reality is that my own local authority was willing to back a public display of foul antisemitism – despite its noisy commitment to tackling prejudice and harassment.

Tragically, this episode is hardly an isolated case. Antisemitism is rising dramatically in modern Britain, with the result that many Jews now complain that they no longer feel safe here. Synagogues and Jewish schools are under siege.

Fanatical anti-Israeli demonstrations are regularly held on the streets of our cities. Only this week, four ambulances run by the Jewish charity Hatzola in north-west London were firebombed.

According to the Community Security Trust, a Jewish-led organisation that provides safety advice and protection, the number of reported antisemitic hate incidents went up from 1662 in 2023 to 3700 last year.

In the face of this ugly trend, too many commentators and politicians adopt a tone of handwringing bewilderment. Why is this happening, they ask? This air of puzzlement is bogus, because the answer is obvious: the fabric of Britain has changed dramatically in recent years, through the deliberate import of millions of people from countries where antisemitism is rife.

Labour are the chief architects of this social revolution. They were the party that, under Tony Blair, opened the floodgates, eroding the bonds of solidarity with their vast experiment in social engineering. For them now to pose as the champions of harmony and cohesion is sickening.

In a speech on Wednesday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting condemned Nigel Farage’s Reform Party as “an existential threat” to Britain for “fuelling a tide of racism”.

But his argument is a cynical fraud. Reform is leading in the polls, not because voters have been duped by racist propaganda, but because they are in despair at the way our nation has been transformed by the progressive establishment without any mandate.

The real threat to Britain lies in the sectarianism creeping into our politics or the loss of our national identity or the accelerating process of Islamification.

Accusations of racism are regularly used by the left to discredit and silence opponents. But the smear has done untold damage to our society. Public policy has been perverted, free debate curtailed. The grooming gangs scandal was covered up for years because potential whistleblowers were fearful of being labelled as racists or Islamophobes.

Similarly, at the recent inquiry into the Manchester bombing in 2017 that killed 22 people, one security guard admitted he did not act on his suspicions about culprit Salman Abedi because he was worried about “stereotyping him because of his race”.

Labour’s Angela Rayner claims demands for a tougher approach are “un-British”. That sort of contradictory language belongs in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. There is nothing un-British about wanting to preserve our traditional way of life. After all, Jewish ambulances were not firebombed in our gentler, more well-ordered past.

To adapt one of the late Bob Monkhouse’s greatest jokes, “They laughed when Sky TV said it wanted to produce a new comedy. They’re not laughing now”. There was a huge amount of hype over the launch of Sky’s British version of the venerable American satirical show Saturday Night Live which has been running for 50 years.

But Sky’s dire effort was so painfully unfunny it will struggle to get a second series. The material was like something written by a Slovenian Chatbot. In a supreme irony, it also emerged this week that a segment on the BBC’s Repair Shop show featuring Monkhouse’s famed joke book was pulled because it contained sexist jokes from the seventies. No wonder we suffer a dearth of humour. You really couldn’t make it up.

A crisis that will only be solved one way

In September 2024, when former police chief Martin Hewitt was appointed the new Border Security Commander on a salary of up to £205,000, the government hailed him as exactly the right figure to end the small boats crisis in the Channel.

A statement from Downing Street read: “Martin Hewitt’s unique expertise will lead a new era of international enforcement to dismantle these networks. Protect our shores and bring order to the asylum system.”

Far from reducing the number of crossings, he saw them surge during his time in charge. Last year, the total reached 41,472, the second-highest on record, while in the last week alone, 984 made it to our shores, prompting ministers to announce that Hewitt would quit at the end of March.

But it is unlikely any commander would have succeeded in this post. That is partly because of the irresponsible attitude of the French authorities who do little to justify the large payments they are handed by Britain. Since July 2024, the French have prevented just 37% of all crossings, despite receiving £478million in a three-year deal negotiated in 2023.

A new agreement is due to be made next week, and our tough-talking Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is trying to get better value for money, though no deal can overcome the fact the French have no real interest in stopping the traffic.

In truth, the crisis will never be properly resolved until Britain has created a real deterrent to the flow of illegal migrants by establishing a facility outside Europe for processing asylum claims and accommodating deportees. That is why it was so foolish of Labour to close the Rwandan scheme before it was given a chance.

At least we can find something to laugh about

With cruel stubbornness, resident doctors are about to embark on another six-day strike, beginning on April 7. By a delicious irony, who else will be taking industrial action on April 7? None other than the employees of the British Medical Association, the resident doctors’ own trade union. So keen to denounce the government for neglect, the BMA stands accused of treating its own staff badly with a series of sub-inflationary pay awards.

The GMB, which represents BMA workers, says: “It is nothing short of hypocritical for the BMA leadership to make their staff an offer that they would encourage their own members to reject.” It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

Farewell to the Whitehall Rolls-Royce

Despite the Chancellor’s talk of her “ironclad fiscal rules”, workplace discipline remains shockingly weak in Whitehall, partly because procedures for dismissing incompetent staff are so slow. One astonishing statistic unearthed by Tory front-bencher Neil O’Brien is that civil servants are 12 times more likely to die in service than be sacked for poor performance.

Whitehall used to see itself as a Rolls Royce. Now it is so inert it is more like a static home.