Return to: Home | Blogs | Dissident Voice

Jonathan Freedland on Stephen Pollard

Jewish Chronicle editor attacked by his own columnist

In his spirited attack on the Tories and their "unsavoury" European allies in today's Guardian, the columnist Jonathan Freedland -- who also happens to be a star columnist for the Jewish Chronicle -- launches a side attack on his Kaminski-supporting, Labour-hating, neoconservative boss, Stephen Pollard, over at the JC:

The Tory defence has been weak. They have cited the embrace extended to Kaminski by first, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, and second, the Conservative Friends of Israel, which astonishingly welcomed Kaminski yesterday. What Tories do not point out is that the former is now a fierce anti-Brown partisan while the latter is, as the name suggests, wholly aligned with the Conservatives. Of course they are defending Cameron's decision. And both have spoken chiefly about Kaminski, suggesting a reluctance to defend the Latvian party. Besides, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews has now written to Cameron, raising questions about the Tory leader's new friends in Europe.

Freedland also amusingly imagines the "attack ads" that Labour spin doctors could launch against the Conservatives, if they borrowed a page from the playbook of American politicians (and, I might add, if they got their act together!):

Just imagine what a US presidential campaign would do with this ammunition. You could run an ad showing the Tory duo in their Bullingdon tails, reminding voters of their personal wealth, and asking how these two could ever be in touch with real people. You might show a man on a bike, later revealed to be followed by a car. The screen would fill with three words: "David Cameron: fake."

But the ad any American politico worth his salt would be itching to make would open thus. "They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. So what does it say about David Cameron that these are his friends?" At which point we'd see images of the men feted in Manchester yesterday, Michal Kaminski, of Poland's Law and Order party (PiS), and Roberts Zile, of Latvia's Freedom and Fatherland party, who now sit as allies with the British Conservatives in the European Parliament -- an issue raised first, to his enormous credit, by David Miliband last week.

Post this article to

  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • newsvine
  • Reddit

Post your comment

(Your email address will not be published)

Recent Posts

Expenses: the story that never ends

19 November 2009 22:31

Bin Laden and me

19 November 2009 08:52

Vote Blue, Go Green?

18 November 2009 17:11

Why die for Karzai?

17 November 2009 13:12

Stephen Byers to quit parliament...

16 November 2009 18:02

Britain's Israel lobby

16 November 2009 17:54

On a break

09 November 2009 00:36

Past Entries

Follow this blog

Vote!

Will Baroness Ashton be an effective EU foreign minister?

Suggest a question

View comments

© New Statesman 1913 – 2009

Tracker