Anyone watching Azeem Rafiq’s testimony before the Common’s committee on Tuesday revealing the appalling racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club would — just like him — have been moved to tears.
We heard of repeated taunts of ‘P***’ in the dressing room and the time he learnt his unborn child had died, yet was still expected to train and was berated by one of his coaches for his poor performance.
No compassion, no kindness, just constant racist ‘banter’ that left him feeling suicidal, needing medication for depression and ultimately ended his glittering career.
Azeem Rafiq has unreservedly apologised for his ignorance, but his message spotlights the casual and endemic racism that still exists against the Jewish community today.
Rafiq (aged 30) took years to find the courage to share his story about being forced to drink alcohol at age 15.
It was so confusing and sad for all of us to see that he made racist remarks during this time he experienced such abuse.
In text messages with another Asian cricketer, he wrote of a friend who was tardy in paying for his round of drinks, ‘Hahahaha he is a Jew’ and then ‘only Jews do that kind of s**t’.
Yes, he’s apologised unreservedly for his ignorance but his message shines a spotlight on the casual, endemic racism against the Jewish community that is still alive today.
Jeremy Corbyn and Muhammad Totah, Hamas’ official during a secret visit to Ramallah
It is alarming that it is almost accepted as a form of racism in some liberal circles.
That’s thanks in no small measure to the pro-Palestinian Momentum mob and the failure of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party to eject swiftly all anti-Semites from their midst.
In the meantime, anti-Semitic abuses on university campuses are up 59% in a single year. Jewish students worry for their safety.
In his youthful anti-Semitism, Rafiq revealed a horrible truth — that ridiculing Jewish people is placed in a lesser category to ‘real racism’.
Comic David Baddiel wrote about the shocking way many view this two-tier racism in his book Jews Don’t Count, published this year.
If any good can come from Rafiq’s admission and apology it is that there is nothing casual about hurtful tropes directed at any community, whether they be Pakistani or Jewish.
A primary school in Richmond, South-West London, has replaced Winston Churchill’s name at one of its houses with that of free-meal campaigning footballer Marcus Rashford. Teachers were jolly progressive, but it occurred to them that their children would have been saluting the Nazis without Winston Churchill.
The unjabbed cost is too high
As their treatment was delayed, approximately 10,000 have lost their lives to non-Covid diseases like heart disease. Why? Why? Because the NHS is now filled with selfish, deluded and unvaccinated patients who have contracted Covid.
Are these bed-blockers not shameful?
They’ve caused unimaginable suffering to the families of those who did the right thing yet were put at the back of the queue for emergency treatment. All these self-centered idiots are a plague.
Emma Watson (pictured with J.K. Rowling), Rupert Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe are reuniting in celebration of the 20th anniversary for Harry Potter.
Harry Potter, the inrates and Harry Potter
Nobody knows why Emma Watson and Rupert Grint will be reuniting for the 20th anniversary celebrations of Harry Potter’s first film, which was released without J.K. Rowling. Did she get cancelled because of her views about transgender issues
Or is it that these ‘stars’ are too stupid to realise she is a true liberal who created the magical world of Hogwarts and the riches they enjoy?
J.K. should cast a magic spell upon these three people to help them feel a bit of gratitude.
It was heartwarming to see the Afghan women football team arrive in Britain. How proud we would have been if Afghan translators arrived here with their families, considering all the thousands who were left behind after fighting alongside British troops.
Meghan Markle has been challenged about saying she was so poor that she used to drive an old Ford Explorer Sport that was so beaten up the door key didn’t work and she had to climb through the boot and over the seats to drive it.
Her half-sister Samantha claimed it’s all fantasy as their father bought Megs a brand new 4×4.
Meanwhile, despite fears over Her Majesty’s health, some good news for the Royal Family as the Sussexes have declined an offer to spend the festive season at Sandringham —the best Christmas present the Queen could have.
Gaga’s gibberish
Preparing to play Patrizia Reggiani in new movie House Of Gucci, Lady Gaga studied a cat, a fox and a panther to recreate the animalistic guile of the designer’s wife.
Yet she says she sees herself as a whale because they have ‘very big hearts and even if they want to be small, they can’t’.
Crikey, let’s hope she hasn’t had a hand in the film’s dialogue.
Lady Gaga plays Patrizia Reggiani, Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci
Preparing to play Patrizia Reggiani in new movie House Of Gucci, Lady Gaga studied a cat, a fox and a panther to recreate the animalistic guile of the designer’s wife
Adele can be seen expressing her feelings about Angelo and her separation while she promotes her new album. The once private singer even included one track My Little Love for Angelo with the lyrics ‘Mummy’s got big feelings. It’s confusing. Mama’s got to learn, teach me’. When you ditch half your body weight and your husband to take up with an American sports agent, Mummy, surely it’s your job to teach your child how to cope.
In life, the multi-millionaire novelist Wilbur Smith who has just died aged 88, said his epitaph should be: ‘I did it all. It was all my fault. Life has been good to me.’ A pity he ensured life wasn’t as good to his three estranged children who he dismissed as getting ‘my sperm, that’s all’.
Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, told Boris that he should sit down in PMQs and not talk about it.
Westminster wars
This was the moment Lindsay Hoyle (House of Commons Speaker) told Boris to get down in his chair and not talk about PMQs. ‘You may run the country,’ he told the PM, ‘but I run this House.’ Never underestimate the tenacity of a man who named his tortoise Maggie.
Irate about the clampdown on second jobs, one self-pitying Tory MP said: ‘The thing no one is mentioning is that we are paid s**t, just 80 grand,’ not mentioning the perks and expenses and gold-plated pensions. Yes, three times the average wage for doing what, it’s becoming clear, is in so many cases a part-time job.
Serena Williams used her profile to highlight the case of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai who ‘disappeared’ after revealing she was forced to have sex with the ex vice-president of President Xi Jinping’s government. Perhaps others like her could also turn the spotlight on a million Uyghur Muslims in ‘re-education camps’ in China where women are raped and sterilised.
The merrier is you
You know the BBC has lost the plot when they lose a national treasure like Andrew Marr — his departure to pastures greener after 20 years was announced yesterday. Andrew Marr and the Marr clan are my best friends over more than twenty years.
In her gormless quest for youth and multi-cultural representation, Aunty has forgotten her core mission to act in the entire public’s interest providing services which ‘inform, educate and entertain’, and keeping presenters like Andrew to justify the licence fee.
Without The Andrew Marr show, Sunday mornings won’t be the same. And if they put politically correct presenters like Amol Rajan in his seat, I’ll stop paying my licence fee.