Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

The arrests of “Lord” Michael Levy, aka Lord Cashpoint and the “cash for honours” scandal has been the subject of much debate on the Media. Some may have believe that it has something to do the corruption and rampant conflicts of interest contributed to by Levy’s generous purse, but today we finally discover the truth: the furore over Levy is driven by anti-Semitism!

And all the while, we kept thinking it had something to do with the fact that Levy was buying influence, honours, and key government positions in return for generous donations from his lobby group, the Labour Friends of Israel. Or the fact that he was appointed an envoy to the Middle-East despite the fact that his only previous working experience has been managing three failed pop bands, and fundraising for Ehud Barak (His son worked for Yossi Beilin and his own hardline Zionist worldview is not a secret either). Or the fact that he obstructed justice by pressuring one of Blair’s senior aids, Ruth Turner, to shape her testimony to mislead the investigators.

But no, that is not what this is all about. 

Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, has denounced “the blatant nastiness” in the”seeming trial by media” and the leaks from ”sinister corners”. This, he tells us ”is one Jew, who has been called the most dynamic Jew in Anglo-Jewry, seemingly being hung out to dry here.”

Louise Ellman, a Labour MP, attributes all of this to “tremendous jealousy”, and on the issue of anti-Semitism, she adds: “I don’t think it is possible to be certain about it, but the whole matter does create a great deal of uneasiness.”

Alan Sugar, of The Apprentice fame, went so far as to lump Asians with Jews, for the first time, as targets of such “scapegoating”. However he was angrier at Blair for letting down his Cashpoint — I mean friend! “[W]ith friends like him, you don’t need any enemies” said Sugar. “Levy has raised a lot of money for his party and assisted him to get elected,” he added.

Sugar deserves credit for at least being honest. Ellman’s concern is understandable, since she is the Vice-Chair of the same lobby group that Levy represented — the Labour Friends of Israel. Schochet is in fact Levy’s own Rabbi.

Justice for All…Except those Muslims!

Craig Murray has an important piece on the scandalous double standards of the British legal system, exemplified by the injunctions against the Guardian and the BBC, that prevent them from publishing damning information about the Levy case. On the other hand, no such sensitivity is shown in cases involving Muslims.

For the benefit of bemused non-British readers, in the UK the media are not allowed to publish the details of any potential evidence in a criminal trial, in case the jury are prejudiced by media reports before they enter the jury box.

Most other countries see no need for such restrictions…But what is undeniable is that in Britain today there is no attempt at fairness in the application of this principle. Senior New Labour figures are entitled to the full protection of this law. Is the same consideration applied to Muslims accused of terrorist offences?

The answer is a resounding no. Instead we receive a constant drip-feed of supposedly terrifying information, from police, Home Office and security services, sometimes open and sometimes just named as, for example, “Police sources”. So in the case of the so-called “liquid bomb plot”, such sources were only too keen to tell us under whose bed suicide videos had been found, near whose home were bottles containing hydrogen peroxide, who had a map pf Afghanistan, and a whole welter of such information. This was spun all over our front pages for a fortnight.

Where was Lord Goldsmith and his concern for the right to a fair, unprejudiced trial then?

I heard Louise Christian, a lawyer involved in the defence of a number of such cases, speak on precisely this point in January. She recalled a local newspaper printing a front page photo of two of her clients the day before their trial, with the banner headline “Terror sisters”. That is not permitted under our law – but it is one of the many protections of the rights of citizens that no longer in practice applies to Muslims in the UK.

Meanwhile, I am stunned that last week Sir Ian Blair, head of the Metropolitan police, shared the top table at a Jewish community dinner with Lord Levy. Blair is the head of the police force that has arrested Levy, removed his passport and, from the actions of Lord Goldsmith this week in seeking to suppress information that may be used at the trial, is likely to charge him shortly with an imprisonable offence.

It cannot possibly be right for the head of the Metropolitan Police to be hobnobbing socially with a prominent alleged criminal. And this is the ultra-sensitive Ian Blair, whose concern for social form is so acute that he demanded an offical report when a female Muslim police officer refused to shake hands with him. The report presumably explained that many Muslim females do not shake hands with men.

Ian Blair and Levy are of course both close members of the Prime Minister’s social and political circle. It is by no means the first time that they have dined together. In July 2005 the two of them ran up a £140 ($270) bill at a London restaurant, which Sir Ian Blair charged to the taxpayer. There was no investigation into Levy at the time, but his being dead sleazy was hardly a secret.

Ian Blair’s explanation of that charge to the taxpayer was that Levy was a representative of the Jewish community. Now, there are many eminent and worthwhile people in London to whom that description applies, but I don’t think that Levy holds any community posts. He is no more a representative of the Jewish community than I am of the Scottish community. Besides, how many one to one £140 meals has Ian Blair had with a representative of the Muslim community? Or the Irish, Iranian, Kurdish, Turkish, Polish, Palestinian or Greek communities? Other than ultra-rich New Labour supporters who happen to have that background?

So Ian Blair and Levy have form. In current circumstances it was a gross error of judgement for Ian Blair to sit at a top table with Lord Levy. Levy should have realised that himself and made his excuses, but nobody could mistake Lord Levy for a gentleman. Therefore Blair should have made an excuse and left. As it is, some of the smell has rubbed off. Ian Blair should resign.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft has a piece on the manufactured controversy in the Independent on Sunday, which he ends with the following:

Some years ago, there was a cartoon in a Tel Aviv newspaper showing a mighty Israeli armoured column as it plunges deep into the desert of Araby. In the corner, a tiny old lady dressed in black is shaking her fist at the incursion. “You see?” one Israeli soldier in the leading armoured vehicle is saying to another: “Anti-Semitism even here.” It’s good to see Jewish humour and irony have survived in the Jewish state. It might not be a bad idea if Rabbi Schochet and David Rowan hung that cartoon in their offices.