Chronicle of Collapse

This week's Jewish Chronicle has apparently been edited by Walter Mitty.

Its circulation of 22,460 in June 2013 is almost certainly even lower now. Yet that newspaper presumes to issue a series of "demands" to the political phenomenon of the decade, Jeremy Corbyn. As if he would care. Or even notice.

Such behaviour is routine in small-circulation Leftist publications such as the one that is about to have to increase its print run very dramatically because one of its columnists is about to become the Leader of the Opposition while its Parliamentary Correspondent is about to become the only member of the Lobby with much access at all to the people running the Labour Party.

No doubt, papers reaching a few thousand Britain First supporters are very much like that, too. As, no doubt, is the Daily Express. Such is the category in which the Jewish Chronicle, the senior Jewish newspaper in the world, has chosen to place itself. This is a very sad day.

There are of course very high-circulation newspapers that seek to hector and bully elected politicians into obeying the will and serving the interests of foreign powers, especially the United States (and not even the present governing element in the United States) and Saudi Arabia.

But this is of a different order. It recalls the days of Soviet Weekly, which I suppose might at certain points have had a readership of comparable size to that of the Jewish Chronicle today, and which made no pretence to be anything other than its name declared it to be.

No politician of any importance ever paid the slightest attention to that. Nor will they to this. An MP who is considerably more recognisable to the electorate than most members of the Cabinet are, is most definitely never going to treat these funny little "demands" with anything even so demanding as his contempt.