The Jewish Chronicle reports on the latest from the unlovely Len McCluskey, who suggested that Peter Mandelson - a man of Jewish heritage - should "just go into a room and count his gold":
The Unite union's general secretary made his comments on BBC2’s Newsnight show after presenter Lewis Goodall told him he had interviewed Lord Mandelson who had been “nothing but full of praise for Keir Starmer”.
Mr McCluskey responded: “I stopped listening to what Peter Mandelson said many, many years ago. I would suggest Peter just goes into a room and counts his gold. Not worrying about what’s happening in the Labour Party – leave that to those of us who are interested in ordinary working class people.”
Mr Goodall had earlier noted in his report that “this debate as so often with antisemitism and Labour is one about language.”
The presenter then added: “When Mr McCluskey sat down with me he used language that could be considered an antisemitic trope.”
After speaking to the Labour peer he noted that he had a “Jewish grandfather.”
After Monday’s report, which looked into Sir Keir’s attempts to change Labour into an election winning force, a clarification of Mr McCluskey’s remarks was read out.
The statement by Unite said: “Mr Mandelson’s religion was not relevant to the comments made by Mr McCluskey.
“Indeed to the best of our knowledge Mr Mandelson is not Jewish.
“The ordinary meaning of the statement made by Mr McCluskey is one of his belief that in recent years Mr Mandelson has had more interest in increasing his own wealth than fighting for justice for working class people. The suggestion of any antisemitic meaning to the commentary would be ludicrous.”
Mr McCluskey later tweeted::”Before this gets out of hand, let me say language is important and I apologise to Peter Mandelson and anyone else if mine has caused hurt.”
To be fair he didn't say "just go into a room and count his shekels".