Thread by @jonworth

This is a deeply unpleasant reaction to @petergumbel’s very personal piece.

“Wink wink nudge nudge” - what is that, Matt? It might have escaped you that the piece says “My grandparents, who fled Nazi Germany for Britain”.

Would you *dare* say that about a minority?

https://twitter.com/goodwinmj/status/1345305902270849025

Or - putting it another way - how dare those of us who’ve (thank goodness) never had parts of our family slaughtered by a dictatorial regime ever presume to judge how future generations of those families react at the personal level?

Also the piece says this: “Xenophobia and racism, presumed to be banished to the margins of public life, made an ugly return to the mainstream”

Which it has.

Your tweet, Matt, saying the UK population is less anti migrant is true, but it’s whataboutery - that isn’t Peter’s point (as I understand it anyway).

There is a debate to be had about the comparative problems of the right wing in Britain and Germany.

But slamming a very personal piece of this nature, saying “Wink wink nudge nudge”, most definitely isn’t the way to do it.

/ends