It is good that Roger Louvet acknowledges Hamas’ action on 7 October to be inexcusable. Whatever side of this most intractable conflict you stand on, that utterly senseless act of violence was evil. It has put the possibility of a peaceful solution back by several generations.

Ironically, The Abraham Accords (the brainchild of Donald Trump) had a chance of delivering a genuinely positive step forward. It seems likely that the imminent signing of an accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia was the catalyst for Hamas’ attack. Some people don’t want peace.

When people become convinced they are right and assume a mantle of virtue, the risk is that they convince themselves of “their truth”. An “Arrogance of Certainty” develops. I think Roger and his colleagues on the Left are at great risk of this.

Everyone can be accused of the selective use of history, but the Left seem to have become particularly adept. Roger blames the “Tory press” for beating Labour over antisemitism conveniently forgetting that it was The Equality and Human Rights Commission (hardly a “Tory” organisation) that reported on this issue.

He recognises that the Iraq war was a disaster, but later accuses The Conservative Party of starting wars. Roger, British involvement of that war occurred under a Labour government, and pretty much at the behest of two men (Blair and Campbell). They aren’t Conservatives.

Roger insinuates that the price of the freedom to express our opinions, which he and I enjoy, was paid exclusively by “the working class”. That’s not only untrue but actually deeply offensive. I would be happy to drive Roger to Bristol to look at the Clifton College Memorial Arch. Amongst hundreds of others (from just one school), it includes the name of my late Mother’s brother, who served and died fighting Nazi tyranny; does Roger believe that his sacrifice was somehow less valid because he came from a Tory voting family?

It’s worth remembering that when the Nazis had finished murdering Jews, they got to work on other minority groups including gays, gypsies and communists. Does Roger think it was wrong to fight that war? Would he and his political colleagues stand up to that filth now? Jim Callaghan and Denis Healey (both WWII veterans) would turn in their graves at the idea that Labour wouldn’t fight a bully like Hitler.

In Roger’s final paragraph, he suggests Christ was anti-Semitic, and that this somehow makes modern antisemitism okay. Roger, intolerance of others because they don’t share your religious or political beliefs is never, ever okay. I don’t believe for a moment that Christ was anti-Semitic and I hope those with greater religious knowledge will refute this vigorously. And I don’t think He called the Tory media “a generation of vipers” either! But let’s not worry about historical accuracy, heh?

I like to think that the hatred those on the Left appear to have of others is largely froth and bluster, but I sometimes wonder. What happens when you refer to other people who don’t share your views and who you don’t even know as “scum”. Repeat it often enough and you start to believe in it, certain of your own virtue. Where does that lead to? Well incredibly there are still a few survivors of The Holocaust alive; maybe we should ask them.

As Rob James recently wrote: “make a conscious effort to be kinder”.