By stewartb

I have no wish to underplay the awful impacts of discrimination, abuse and acts of violence against individuals and their communities that are motivated by religious or ethnic prejudice or hate. Nor do I wish to appear complacent. However, those seeking to address serious issues involved in sustaining community safety and respectful co-existence are IMHO not well served by ‘misrepresentation’ of statistics or worse.

I offer the example of the Scottish Daily Express (15 February) which has been exhibiting its all too familiar rabidly anti-Scotland journalism in coverage of the Community Security Trust’s (CST) latest report on anti-semitism.

Express headline: ’Antisemitic attacks double in Scotland with country emerging as hate hotspot as Jews face new ‘pogrom’.

The Express does what the Express does: ‘Scotland has emerged as a HATE HOTSPOT with antisemitic incidents doubling in a year. New figures from the Community Security Trust (CST) recorded more than 4,000 incidents involving racism against Jews across the UK.’ (my emphasis)

‘The all-time high figure has been put down to an explosion in attacks since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. The vast majority were recorded in London (2,410) while Manchester (555) also recorded a high number. But Scotland was also IN THE TOP FIVE FOR HATE INCIDENTS with 68 – exactly double the 34 recorded in 2022.’ Any sense in the article of 2,410 being two orders of magnitude bigger than 68 – of course not!

Alert readers will note the careful juxtaposition of ‘facts’ by the Express’ journalist: the construction of the text seeks to provide a (false) perspective in order to paint Scotland in a bad light. It is a blatant gaslighting tactic: Express readers should note that even their intelligence is being insulted.

The Scottish Daily Express also tells its readers: ‘Speaking to BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme on Thursday, Ephraim Borowski of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities said JEWS IN SCOTLAND WERE FACING A NEW “POGROM”. These were violent riots in the 19th and 20th centuries in mainland Europe aimed at exterminating or expelling Jews.’

So just for the avoidance of doubt, combining these inputs with the journalistic contribution from the Express, the charge is that Scotland is a anti-semitic hotspot where there is an imminent (recall ‘facing’) threat of a ‘progrom’, an activity that has the objective of exterminating or expelling Jews. I’m not sure who to condemn most for such misrepresentation – or should I say, arrant nonsense?

Even the Express struggles to keep up the ‘progrom’ comparison, noting: ‘It is understood the vast majority of Scottish incidents were examples of abusive behaviour. Four were physical assaults, three desecrations of property and one incident of antisemitic leaflets being posted to a synagogue in Glasgow.’ Taking them all at face value as ‘anti-semitic’ incidents, is this evidence enough to invoke the language of ‘facing a progrom’ in Scotland?

I had a look at the CST’s reporting. Interestingly, it published data on alleged anti-semitic incidents across the UK for the first half of 2023 and later published a further report for the whole of 2023. So, by calculation, it’s possible to split out the incidents for just the second half of 2023, which of course includes the period since 7 October.

In the latter half of 2023, the CST records 54 incidents across the whole of Scotland (population c.5.5 million), some or all of which could have been triggered by the latest events in Gaza i.e. ONE INCIDENT over six months per 100,000 population. Anyone stating this to be ‘one too many’ will get no counter argument from me beyond beyond let’s keep some perspective!

For comparison, over the same period the CST records 1,963 incidents in Greater London (population c.9 million) i.e. by calculation, c. 21.8 incidents per 100,000 population. The equivalent figure for Greater Manchester is 14.6 incidents per 100,000 population.

As the main TuS blog post notes, the CST ranks areas of the UK by absolute number of incidents, opting to consider the whole of Scotland as one geographic entity. (It’s this which gives the Scottish Daily Express its ‘fact’. and ‘hotspot’ jibe.) It’s worth looking within the CST’s rankings for areas with the most similar absolute number of ‘incidents’ to Scotland:
– Hertfordshire (population c.2 million) has 88 ‘incidents’ in the second half of 2023 i.e. 4 incidents per 100,000 population
– Northumbria (population c. 0.3 million) with 42 ‘incidents’ i.e. 13.1 incidents per 100,000 population.

Scotland, the ‘anti-semitic hotspot’ where a small community is facing a “progrom”: aye right! Does anyone other than those with malign motives to denigrate and gaslight Scotland think the use of such framing is appropriate and helpful? 

Looking beyond those who undoubtedly have such motives, do the community organisations in Scotland at the forefront of these issues really think this framing – such gross misrepresentation – is at all helpful to cross-community cohesion Candidly, it has the potential to make even my mild mannered self thoroughly p….d off!