Are there
no limits to which certain candidates won’t go in order to live down past principles?  It would seem that certain Labour
candidates wouldn’t know what a principle was if it leapt up and bit them
on the backside.  Meet Fiona Smith, who
is a good example of such a creature.

In 2014
Fiona Smith, Labour candidate for Hertsmere, called for a halt to arms supplies
to Israel.  At the  time of Operation Protective Edge, Israel was
launching high tech missiles at schools, hospitals, clinics and people’s
homes.  It was using cluster bombs
against civilians and chemical weapons (white phosphorous).

Israel even shot in cold blood 4 small children playing on Gaza’s beach,
amongst the 551 kids who were murdered as part of Israel’s war against
terrorism.ˌ

Most
civilised and caring people called for a halt to arms supplies to Israel.  Israel is a
state that is a world superpower which was testing its weapons on the civilian population of Gaza.  A
population which has been subject to a starvation blockade for over a decade.

In her 2014
tweet Smith said that ‘we must not
facilitate war crimes’ and Israel was committing war crimes by the
thousand.  War on a civilian population is
the quintessential definition of a war crime.

 Today however
the shameless and execrable Fiona Smith is a candidate for election in what
the Jewish News describes as ‘the densely
Jewish constituency of Hertsmere.’  Apparently
14% of its electorate are Jewish. 
However that doesn’t mean that all of them are Zionists still less that Israel
is the main issue concerning them. The Jewish News description of Herstsmere and the implication that its Jewish residents will vote according to the needs of Israel is what you might all anti-Semitic.

Smith’s assumption however was that Jewish voters have no principles. Smith assumes that Jewish voters are likely to be impressed by someone whose principles are for sale if the price is right.  Ms Smith is what is known as a political prostitute.

Demonstrating
just how some people will scrape and bow, Uriah Heep style, in order to chase
elusive votes, Fiona Smith eats her words of 2014 and now claims that Israel was
under attack by Hamas, Hizbollah (!) and Iran (!) – in other words all the
fantasies of Netanyahu and his racist buddies.

 As the Jewish comedian, Groucho Marx once said, ‘Those are my principles, and if you don’t
like them… well, I have others.’

When considering how best to describe the conduct of Ms Smith I first alighted
on sycophantic and then looked for some synonyms.  I came up with the following:

obsequious,
servile,
subservient,
deferential,
grovelling, toadying, fawning,
flattering,
ingratiating,
cringing, unctuous,
oily,
slimy,
creeping, crawling, truckling, slavish,
bowing and scraping, Uriah Heepish, gushing;

There are so many, but which one adequately or best describes Ms Smith’s
behaviour?  Maybe you my dear readers
could help me out.

Below is the Jewish News report on Fiona Smith

May 4, 2017, 11:15 pm

Labour’s candidate for the densely Jewish
constituency of Hertsmere has said she is “mortified|” about a social media
comment she made  backing an arms embargo on Israel.

In 2014,
during the height of Israel’s operation against Hamas in Gaza, Fiona Smith
tweeted: “Call on the UK government to halt the supply of arms to Israel. We
must not facilitate war crimes”, alongside a link to an Amnesty International
appeal.

But
today, Ms Smith, who hopes to unseat Oliver Dowden’s 18,000 majority in the
constituency, distanced herself from the 2014 Twitter comment.

She said:
“This single tweet is three years old and happened as a result of my clicking
on an Amnesty International campaign.  I have no animus towards Israel
whatsoever and am mortified that anybody might have been given that
impression.  I have a track record of campaigning against arms policies
more generally, including Saudi arms deals”.

The
Labour candidate said she recognised “that
the explicitly stated policies and actions of terror groups like Hamas and
Hezbollah and the threat from Iran all create unique security and defence
requirements to enable Israel to protect its citizens.  My understanding
of this is underpinned by my background in our armed forces”.

Dowden, who is seeking
re-election for the Tories, said: “Hertsmere needs a strong voice for its
Jewish community not a Labour candidate who attacks Israel and whose leader
offers friendship to Hamas and Hezbollah while anti-Semitism festers. As
Hertsmere’s MP, these are exactly the sort of attitudes I sought to challenge –
both as an officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel and Chairman of the
Parliamentary group for British Jews.”

Ms Smith said she supported a two
state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestiniansand that she
opposed  boycotts of Israel which “do nothing to further the cause of
peace” The candidate added that she looked forward to visiting Israel “and
building close links with our sister Labour Party over there”.

Hertsmere incorporates areas of
Bushey, Borehamwood and Radlett, all of which have seen major Jewish population
growth, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR).

The constituency is home to the
UK’s fastest growing Jewish community, which grew by 35 per cent between the
2001 and 2011 censuses. According to JPR’s report issued before the 2015
General Election, there were 14,293 Jews in the constituency, which has been
held by the Conservatives since its creation in 1983.

The Jewish
Chronicle also has a report
on Fiona Smith’s cringing, unctuous behaviour in disavowing her previous
stance.