Call me an old cynic, but I knew from the moment that the Alaa Abd el-Fattah affair blew up what the next stage would be. The single most predictable thing in the entire farce – a Whitehall farce indeed, albeit very much not in the old Brian Rix mould – was that when el-Fattah made his first comment, it would be that far from hating Jews, he was in fact deeply, passionately, preternaturally opposed to anti-Semitism in all its forms. Lo and behold, it came to pass:

I take accusations of anti-Semitism very seriously. I have always believed that sectarianism and racism are the most sinister and dangerous of forces, and I did my part and paid the price for standing up for the rights of religious minorities in Egypt.

Does Kearns really think that if el-Fattah said sorry, it would change anything?

A veritable warrior against Jew hate, indeed! How lucky we Brits now are to have such a man in our midst. And how right Sir Keir Starmer is to proclaim it such a wondrous triumph. How, after all, could it cross the mind of anyone that someone who wrote these tweets could have any sort of issue with Jews? ‘I........

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