Just to explain why I signed this: because, whatever Corbyn's virtues and merits, I think it's unconscionable that a potential prime minister should have expressed a wish to invite someone who propagated the blood libel to tea in the House of Commons. theguardian.com/politics/2019/…
The blood libel was invented in England. Of all the many hideous calumnies that have been directed against the Jews over the centuries, the English have a special duty to guard against the blood libel.
Corbyn's defenders claim that he was motivated in his enthusiasm for Saleh by a desire to stand up for oppressed peoples everywhere. I would accept that argument more readily had he taken a similar stand in defence of the Yazidis or Uighurs, who are suffering much worse.
I have many friends who disagree with me strongly on this, and many more who will certainly not regard me as a friend now. But I've felt this about Corbyn since before he was elected Labour leader, and nothing that's happened since has led me to change my mind.
I just wish Labour - Britain's progressive party, the party that has indeed always stood up tall against "anti-semitism & all forms of racism" - were well shot of Corbyn. And I hope that soon it will be.
@MichaelRosenYes (Am now on holiday for 3 days, so intend to have a break from politics & work until I get back.)
“The English church has a particular guilt. The blood libel, that Jews use the blood of Christian children in rituals, was invented in England...”
And English MPs have a particular responsibility not to invite people who propagate the blood libel to tea. thetimes.co.uk/article/church…
Those who are heirs to the Christian conviction that the last shall be first must strain every sinew to ensure they are not heirs as well to the darkest legacy of England’s Christian past...
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To the seas of Suffolk, there to embark tomorrow with @jamiembrixton on a journey across England to Blackpool: coast to coast, as directly as we can, stopping off along the way to admire & explore what may lie in our path...
And so it begins.
@jamiembrixton kneels in admiration before the spectacle of the river Deben, as it meets the North Sea. 2 Martello towers stand on sentry in the distance. #CoastToCoast
Bawdsey Manor: built in 1886 by thé splendidly named art collector & Liberal MP, Sir William Cuthbert Quilter; requisitioned in WW1; bought in 1936 by the Air Ministry to serve as a centre for radar research. Amazingly, it continued as a RAF base into the 90s. So Dr Who…
Huge excitement as we arrive at the first stop on our tour of #PreConquestKent: a Romano-British temple found during the building of a housing estate in Newington, just off Watling Street.
@jamiembrixton engages in some top archaeological research, scoping out the very site.
The remains of the temple were moved 70 metres to a neighbouring recreation area. It dates to the 1st century, & stood in what seems basically to have been a huge industrial zone, producing iron & pottery. Although massively developed under the Romans, it was originally Iron Age.
The readiness of faith leaders to ignore the evidence of history should it conflict with their doctrinal positions is always a bit depressing
No! By and large, we owe what survives of classical literature to Christian copyists. Christian emperors might order heretical & astrological books burned - but there was never any campaign to destroy pagan learning. Quite the opposite, in fact.
This, by @TimONeill007, is an excellent summary of why the notion that Christians destroyed classical learning is a myth of the kind that atheists pride themselves on opposing. (Whereas in fact they tend merely to be recycling Protestant anti-Catholicism) historyforatheists.com/2020/03/the-gr…
To the ancient city of Mandu, for a millennium and more a mighty stronghold, but also, in the 15th century, the scene of what @DalrympleWill has described as “one of the most singular experiments in pleasure that the world has ever seen.”
“Ghiyath Shahi filled Mandu with no less than 16,000 beautiful female slaves and the good-looking daughters of his feudatory rajahs; the walled hilltop citadel was defended by an army of five hundred armour-clad girls from Abyssinia.”
Ghiyath Shah’s other enthusiasms included: samosas (“don’t forget to add saffron, fried aubergines & ginger”); hunting; perfumes (especially aromatic oils); and aphrodisiacs (“sparrow brains fried in milk and ghee”).
H/t Hannah Robinson’s excellent @secret_unusual guide to Edinburgh
“The lodge is designated No. 1 in Scotland & it may well be the oldest Freemason lodge in the world. References are made to it in 1504 & it holds minutes of the oldest Masonic meeting on 31 July 1599, making it the world’s oldest Masonic document.” #Edinburgh
The birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell, without whom I would have been unable to post this tweet