Naming No Names, But

Desperate stuff from the right-wing and liberal press, trying to suggest that the unquestionable authority that is secular nationalist Israeli public opinion is turning against the Ayia Napa Twelve (at least some of whom are undeniably very unpleasant indeed), and alluding to the commercial and political connections of their families.

Those allusions are perfectly accurate, but they would ordinarily have those same papers screaming blue murder about anti-Semitism. Those papers have also taken to giving the boys' current ages, not their ages at the time.

Freya Heath will be sentenced tomorrow, and it looks as if she will get next to no punishment, if only because she was charged with much less than she might have been. Even so, though, there will be uproar in the British media.

"The British media" that "are not naming her". They have given up pretending that there are any "legal reasons" for that. 19-year-old convicts in general cannot expect this deference, nor should they be able to do so. But if "the British media are not naming her," then did they have a meeting or something?

Anyone would think that they were a single bloc that merely affected commercial rivalry and political difference in the secure knowledge that hardly anyone who read The Guardian ever read the Daily Mail, or vice versa. And what would be the implications of that? I mean, it would hardly bear thinking about, would it?

I will be standing for Parliament again here at North West Durham next time, so please give generously. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.