Among the favourites to win Labour’s Manchester Gorton selection contest is North West MEP Afzil Khan. According to local sources Khan has been lining himself up for the Gorton seat for many years. This tweet from 2014 could be a problem:

At the time Marie van der Zyl, a Board of Deputies vice president, and Sharon Bannister, president of the Manchester Jewish Representative Council said:

“We are deeply disappointed by these tweets, [which are] still deeply offensive… There is no place for antisemitism in our politics.”

He has now deleted the tweet. Labour MPs and councillors have been suspended for less…

UPDATE: Khan gets in touch with a weak excuse:

“In 2014 I tweeted a link to a blog post about the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. The blog post and the quoted headline referred to the content of a speech by Sir Gerald Kaufman in Parliament. My twitter account clearly states that tweets are not endorsements. I did not then – nor do I now – endorse the content of this blogpost and certainly not the headline.

“I have long since deleted this tweet and when this issue was raised with me last year I apologised for any offence caused. I met with the local Jewish Representative Council to apologise and I was also supported by prominent members of the Jewish community in Greater Manchester.”