James O’Brien has today apologised on LBC after he yesterday uncritically read out a claim that Jewish children attending “Shabbat school” in the UK were taught that “one Jewish life is worth thousands of Arab lives, and that Arabs are cockroaches to be crushed.” The now-deleted clip has received global coverage…
He has now said on air:
“At this time yesterday on the show, I read out a message from a listener called Chris who said that his wife had been brought up in the Jewish faith and had attended what he described as a Shabbat school. He went on to make further claims about what he said she had been taught in that school. As with all the texts and messages that I read out on the program, I did so in good faith. But the message has understandably upset a lot of people and I regret taking those unsubstantiated claims at face value and I’m genuinely sorry for that. Um, and it is very important that I get that out there and and thank you for your um, attention.”
LBC has not released its own statement. A Campaign Against Antisemitism spokesman said the original comments were “amplified by a host who likely wouldn’t think twice about cutting off the caller were he promoting such grotesque falsehoods about another minority.” Not pretty…
Shadow national security minister Alicia Kearns told Times Radio she would have put a precondition on a China trip if she were PM:
“I would have put a precondition that I was not going to go if I was prime minister, unless Jimmy Lai was coming home with me. I would also put a precondition in the six months leading up to the visit that I wanted a reduction in hostile acts against our country. But that’s not what we saw. And actually, in contrast, what we saw was clearly the Chinese Communist Party did put a precondition, which was that the new embassy in London had to be signed off. So why is it okay for China to set preconditions and to make very clear red lines about what they require for a visit, but we go without having put any ourselves?”