Mick Hartley

And a Times letter from Lord Triesman:

Sir, I am Jewish but won’t pretend to be especially religious. I also served as the first independent chairman of the Football Association. I have with huge reluctance come to doubt that this is a safe country for Jewish people. The decision in Birmingham on banning Tel Aviv supporters and the pallid, inconsequential statement from my own party leadership (“Mahmood knew of ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans”, Oct 18), and the murder of community members in Manchester on the most sacred of our days — when we and our children reflect on our own failures and not those of others — raise fundamental issues of years tolerating dreadful behaviour. We were always capable of far better intercommunal relations and perhaps as Labour general secretary I should have done more, but the failures have overwhelmed our leadership.

For many years my synagogue and various schools and events have had guards. And all this abnormality because we are Jewish, not because we have broken any law. It is no longer a tolerable way to live. The last thing that makes any difference, other than to add insult to injury, is another supine statement. When we fail to back up our words with actions, the result is that the victims become the villains. Tragic but inevitable given the persistent failures.