Just to note that Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London who is himself content, as a reputedly rich tax avoider, not to vote Conservative, told viewers of last Tuesday’s Newsnight on BBC2 that Jews were rich and so voted Conservative.
“If we were talking 50 years ago, the Roman Catholic community, the Irish community in Britain, the Jewish community was solidly Labor. Still the Irish Catholic community is pretty still solidly Labor because it is not terribly rich.
“As the Jewish community got richer, it moved over to voting for Mrs Thatcher as they did in Finchley”.
He thereby perpetuates, in these times of UKIP and anti-minority sentiment, the myth that Jews are rich while others struggle to get by.
It seems like a case of unsavoury wishful thinking of him to focus on class here. For a start, we know that Thatcher got in on the back of white working class voters, as UKIP may this year and next. And then there’s the fact tha,t since he has this weird thing about Jews – who comprise a bare 0.5% of the electorate, he should at least be vaguely aware that in 2010 the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (IJPR) reported an even Conservative / Labour among British Jews, with many floating or undecided voters. Like most British young people, Jewish young people are less likely to vote Conservative. Single and secular Jews, ditto. And like women in general, Jewish women are more likely to grasp that voting Conservative is not in their interests. To pick up on the Conservative leanings of religious Jews, it is the most religious who are most likely to live in poverty, according to a 2011 IJPR report.
So Ken’s assertion seems more and more spurious.
From his experience of alienating Jews and the ensuing coverage, I surmise that Ken Livingstone knew what he was saying. I’d say he’s one of those who holds negative views of Jews. Antisemitism goes hand in hand with other errors of judgement so it was no surprise that, even though Boris Johnson had a terrible record at the time, Livingstone contrived to lose the last London mayoral election for the Labour party (the cleverest of whom refused to compromise their principles on him).
Flesh is Grass 