At last, British Jews have realised that the Labour Party is no longer on their side - 69% intend voting Conservative

Only 22% of Britain's Jews intend voting for Labour, the party they have traditionally suuported. Support for Labour has been on the wane for some time, but the swing to the Tories is truly astonishing. In 2010, Jewish support for Labour stood at 31%, with the Tories at 30%. That means that,  in just five years, Labour has dropped 10% while the Conservatives have gained nearly 40%. Bloody hell!


Last month, that vile little goblin, Ken Livingstone, who has regularly provided succour to Muslim extremists, crawled out from under whatever rock now provides him with a roof to blame this mass defection on the fact that Jews have become richer - because, I suppose, he thinks they're greedy and their hearts are ruled by their wallets, and it's inconceivable to imagine that their shifting allegiance could be based on the Labour Party's craven dhimmitude, its tolerance of bearded nutters preaching hatred and sedition, its unambiguous support for Palestinian rocket-lobbers, the fact that political correctness has allowed Pakistani rape gangs to run riot in some English cities controlled by Labour councils, or that Labour politicians have sucked up like billy-oh to Muslim voters in an attempt to plug the gap created by waning support from white working class voters. No - according to Ken, it's all about money.
Of course, Marxists - unlike most of us - are obsessed by money. I don't quite know what Livingstone would make of the fact that 64% of those polled thought David Cameron had the best attitude towards British Jewry, while Ed Miliband scored a spectacularly miserable 13%. Given that Ed Miliband is Jewish, while David Cameron is about as WASP as you can get without sporting floppy blond hair, that's extraordinary. What does that have to do with money?

When it comes to the major parties' attitudes to the Middle East, Labour's bias against Israel (demonstrated daily by the party's broadcasting wing, the BBC) has evidently hit home:

The polling revealed that Mr Miliband’s approach to Israel and the Middle East is seen as toxic within the Jewish community. Just 10 per cent of people said he had the best approach, compared to 65 per cent who favoured Mr Cameron’s stance.

The Labour party itself fared worse than its leader, with its Israel policy attracting only eight per cent of Jewish voters. The Tory approach was preferred by 61 per cent.

And before someone introduces the "it's all about Israel" meme, that means over half of the Jews intending to vote Labour prefer the Tory stance on Israel. Not only that, but Manchester Jews are more pro-Labour than their London counterparts, despite having an even poorer view of the party's attitude to the Jewish homeland. Still, on this and every other issue, Labour don't fare as badly as the Lib-Dems, who harbour some truly despicable anti-Semite politicians in their ranks - a whopping one percent approve of Cleggy and his chums' attitude to Israel.

It's interesting (and a little depressing) to note that UKIP - despite being the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel party - have totally failed to win over Jewish voters: they fare even worse than the Lib-Dems! Not surprising, I suppose, given the party's anti-comsmopolitan, anti-internationalist, anti-urban bias. With the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in Britain, if I were Jewish, I wouldn't be voting for a party which is unlikely to be holding the balance of power after the election, and which stood absolutely no chance of being elected in my area.

Anyway, why should Labour care? Although Jews are more politically engaged and more likely to vote than any other section of the population, they make up a mere 0.5% of the electorate. True, only 47% of eligible Muslim voters bothered to demonstrate their love of democracy at the last election - but there's a hell of a lot more of them overall, and 68% of ethnic minority voters supported their Labour plantation bosses in 2010, compared with 16% support for the Tories (hence Cameron's disastrous decision to elevate Baroness Token - sorry, Warsi - to the Cabinet after he managed to cock up the last election).  Labour has evidently decided - based on those figures - that it's more important to keep Muslims on board than Jews.

Why does this change in Jewish voting intentions please me, despite my not being a fan of Cameron's Tories? Because it simply made no sense for Jews to go on supporting Labour, a party that has become so nakedly hostile to their interests - and I like things to make sense.

The Jewish Chronicle poll results can be found here.