Margaret Hodge is a Humbug

by Les May

IN June 2016 Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey submitted a motion of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn Labour leader for discussion at the following Monday's PLP meeting. This triggered a leadership contest which Corbyn won by a bigger margin than in 2015.  In July 2018 she called Corbyn a ‘fucking racist and antisemite’ in the chamber of the House of Commons.  Whether there is any connection between these two things I do not know though perhaps I could be forgiven for thinking there might be.  The proximate factor for her recent outburst was that she had not got her own way about something.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-told-by-veteran-jewish-mp-youre-a-fucking-racist-and-anti-semite-margaret-hodge_uk_5b4e34cbe4b0fd5c73bfe020

Clearly this woman thinks she can do no wrong.  Her response to hints that she might face being reported to the Whips, and face a disciplinary inquiry was to give an interview to Sky News and say 'On the day that I heard that they were going to discipline me and possibly suspend me, it felt almost like, I kept thinking what did it feel like to be a Jew in Germany in the Thirties?'

'Because it felt almost as if they were coming for me. It’s rather difficult to define, but there’s that fear… '

http://www.itv.com/news/2018-08-16/dame-margaret-hodge-likens-labour-disciplinary-investigation-to-nazi-germany/

This must surely be one of the most preposterous exaggerations that any politician has ever uttered.  To try to draw a comparison with what happened to many Jewish people and many others in Nazi Germany in the 1930s beggars belief and might raise a few eyebrows.

What it shows is that Hodge is a complete humbug.  She wants to be free to call other people a ‘fucking racist and antisemite’, but not let the rest of us have the freedom to compare the policies of the government of Israel towards the Palestinians with those of the Nazis or say that Israel is a racist nation without finding ourselves branded an antisemite.

Hodge’s antics are an exercise in self indulgence.  She wants to argue about the wording of something when we are heading towards an exit from the EU in seven months time which will please neither those who voted Leave nor those who voted Remain, when people being forced to live on the streets is given such low priority that the problem will not be solved until 2027, when …  Need I go on?

Socialists might like to follow the links below.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businesslatestnews/9668396/Margaret-Hodges-family-company-pays-just-0.01pc-tax-on-2.1bn-of-business-generated-in-the-UK.html

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/anti-tax-avoidance-campaigner-margaret-hodge-given-1-5m-shares-tax-haven-liechtenstein-1498813

If any of the links are not ‘live’ and showing blue, holding down the left mouse button drag it over the text of the link, then press the right mouse button and copy the marked text. Paste this into your browser, e.g. Firefox.

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