No, Jeremy Corbyn is not antisemitic – but the left should be wary of who he calls friends

The Labour MP's tendency to seek out unsavoury comrades is a symptom of an intellectual and political malady: the long-term ideological corruption of that part of the left in which he was formed.

By Prof Alan Johnson

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers,” said the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. “He’s one who asks the right questions.”

The British novelist Howard Jacobson is not a scientist, but he has asked the right question about the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, the improbable-but-likely next leader of the Labour party. Here it is: “Why can’t we oppose the inequities of a society weighted in favour of wealth, and all the trash that wealth accumulates, without at the same time having to snuggle up to Putin, pal out with Hamas, and make apologies for extremists?”