Jews Don’t Count: A Times Book of the Year 2021

* A small addendum: a little while after David Cameron said this, I was on an ITV politics debate show called The Agenda. It was hosted by Tom Bradby, and was a kind of Question Time-lite. Which is why major politicians like the prime minister would do it: it was a softer ride. But Cameron, having realised that I was on the show with him, was still worried. He walked into the green room, came straight for me and said: ‘Are we going to be talking about the Yid thing?’ He then told me he’d thought about it, or rather spoken to his adviser Lord Feldman about it, and Lord Feldman had said ‘Baddiel is right’ and the prime minister had decided to go with that. Although not to the point of actually understanding that casually using the word Yid – in this case, in front of a Jew – might be a bad thing. He was still not bothered, at all, about saying Yid out loud. In front of a Jew. (I was tempted to say ‘In front of a Yid’ then, for comedy, but that would really not help my point.)