When Guido posted Edward Macmillan Scott’s attack on Michał Kamiński there was quite a strong backlash from the co-conspirators. Dan Hannan did quite a comprehensive rebuttal of the charges against Kamiński, Charles Crawford the blogging former British ambassador to Poland put it all in context which made it clear he didn’t believe the charges.  Guido was also emailed by a researcher from a Jewish political group and told that although they didn’t want to go on the record they had checked him out and found nothing that concerned them. That made Guido think that perhaps there was a lot of smoke without fire.

In the Telegraph Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, repudiates the charge of anti-semitism. Polly is very sensitive to any hint of anti-semitism, if he is prepared to stake his reputation to clear Kamiński in the strongest possible langauge (“Anti-Semitic mudslinging of the worst kind“), then Guido takes it as read that Kamiński is innocent.

Which reflects appallingly on people like Dennis MacShane who smeared Kamiński in the most shameful manner in order to make a party political point. It is a terrible habit of those on the left to seek to demonise those on the right as racists. As if everyone who is in favour of low taxes and limited government must be prejudiced. Why not stick to attacking your opponents for what they actually believe in and what they actually do?

Calling someone a racist is much more emotionally charged than an argument over the effectiveness of  a particular fiscal approach. It should not be deployed, as seems too often the case, as a standard debating tactic against opponents. Labour spinners go looking for evidence of racism whenever they want to demonise an opponent. They tried to do this to frame Boris when he ran for Mayor, Damian McBride and Derek Draper did it to Iain Dale over his comments about Carol Thatcher’s unwise choice of words, and to Guido over comments on this blog not even written or seen by Guido. If Labour politicians stopped trying to falsely tar all their opponents as racists and really reserved the term for actual active racists, perhaps they would be more effective in countering the BNP’s rise in their own heartlands.