I have known and disagreed with Ken Livingstone for nearly 40 years. I especially loathe his slippery excuse-making for the IRA, and I think he has done more damage to this country than almost any other figure on the Left.

But it is ridiculous to call him an ‘apologist for Hitler’, or to suggest that he is an anti-Jewish bigot.

I was just leaving the BBC’s Westminster studios on Thursday when Mr Livingstone stepped into an over-excited knot of political reporters. They looked like what they are – simultaneously a pack of snapping wolves, buzzing with self-righteousness, and a flock of bleating, conformist sheep, all thinking and saying exactly the same thing.

I have known and disagreed with Ken Livingstone for nearly 40 years, writes Peter Hitchens, but it is ridiculous to call him an 'apologist for Hitler' or to suggest that he is an anti-Jewish bigot

After undergoing a minute or two of synthetic rage and baying, the former Mayor of London politely excused himself and went to the lavatory. The flock waited outside, restored for a moment to calm and reason. Then Ken popped out again and the wild shouting and pushing resumed, as if a switch had been pressed.

At one point this stumbling, squawking carnival was joined by a barking dog. If it had gone on much longer, crowds of tourists would have gathered, mistaking it for an ancient London tradition. This is how politics is reported in this country, almost completely without thought.

I am, as it happens, a keen Zionist, a confirmed supporter of Israel’s continued existence as an avowedly Jewish state. Anti-Semitism – or Judophobia as I call it – gives me the creeps. So does the extraordinarily selective criticism of Israel, which does many bad things, by people who never seem to notice the equally bad crimes of any other country. I ask them: ‘Why is this?’ They can never answer.

And as it happens I had on Wednesday evening taken Mr Livingstone to task (at a London public meeting) for the Left’s feebleness in face of Muslim Judophobia.

This is a sad fact. On visits to the Muslim world, from Egypt to Iran, Iraq and Jordan, via the Israeli-occupied West Bank, I have repeatedly met foul and bigoted opinions about Jews which people in this country would be ashamed to speak out loud.

I have no doubt that there are plenty of Muslims who do not harbour such views. But there are those who do, and British political parties which seek the support of Muslims have often been coy about challenging this. As for all these people who have suddenly got so exercised about Judophobia, and wildly worked up about Ken Livingstone’s batty views on Zionism (standard issue on the far Left for decades), I have some questions for them.

Are you prepared to put the same energy into challenging and denouncing Judophobia among the Palestinians you support abroad, and the British Muslims whose votes you seek here?

Because, if not, I might suspect that you are just using the issue to try to win back control of the Labour Party, which you lost last summer in a fair fight.

The crude murder of a gripping story

This country seethes with scandals brought about by excessive political correctness. Yet many police dramas end up reaching for a particular sort of child sexual abuse, in which seemingly respectable conservative people are exposed as corrupt villains, as the root of the mystery they seek to solve.

Many police dramas end up reaching for a particular sort of child sexual abuse, in which seemingly respectable conservative people are exposed as corrupt villains. Pictured, BBC's Line of Duty

Line Of Duty, the BBC’s latest much praised cop drama, took the same line. It’s a failure of imagination, mixed with Leftish politics. Perhaps that’s why its author also resorted to a ludicrous closing scene, in which a real, tense drama of interrogation, slowly moving towards a stinging conclusion, was abruptly ended by a crude shoot-out and a cruder car chase.

I am not interested in football and do not like it. I am loathed by many in the police because I criticise their aloof arrogance and their lack of interest in our problems. I dislike The Sun newspaper. I think Liverpool is a great and majestic city.

So don’t bother accusing me of serving any agenda when I say that I don’t like the unanimous Diana-style hysteria that seems to be developing over the Hillsborough tragedy. It is beyond belief that every police officer present was the devil incarnate. It is beyond belief that every football supporter present was a shining angel.

Those accused of criminal wrongdoing in this horrible event must be permitted to defend themselves and their reputations without being attacked for daring to do so. The presumption of innocence, never more important than when an unpopular defendant is on trial, must be enforced. In our free courts nobody is indefensible, and nobody should be denied the liberty to defend himself. Tragedy is no excuse for injustice.

Nick Clegg, when he was deputy prime minister, claimed we were throwing harmless drug users into prison at the rate of a thousand a year

Clegg's drugs confession

Some things are unsayable in British politics. One such is the truth that cannabis has been, for many years, a decriminalised drug. The police, the CPS and the courts have given up any serious effort to arrest and prosecute users, just as evidence starts to pour in that it is extremely dangerous.

Instead our elite moan about ‘prohibition’, which does not exist, and the cruel ‘criminalisation’ of dope-smokers, which would be their own fault if it happened, but actually doesn’t. Arrests for this offence are rarer every week, and some police forces openly say they don’t do it any more.

Only two years ago, when he was Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg claimed in The Sun newspaper that we were throwing supposedly harmless drug users into prison at the rate of a thousand a year. I’ve never been able to find out where this figure comes from. But on Thursday, he dramatically changed his tune. I extracted from him, on live TV, the most honest thing any senior British politician has actually said on the subject.

‘There is sort of de facto decriminalisation of cannabis going on… it’s not a very remarkable discovery. Everyone knows it.

‘Of course there is de facto decriminalisation … let’s have a bit of honesty that decriminalisation is happening de facto.’

He acted as if he’d been saying this all along. Has anyone else ever heard him do so?

The incessant lie that we are waging a failed ‘war on drugs’ with prohibition and persecution only fuels the cynical, greedy campaign for full legalisation. If this succeeds, we will get advertising of drugs, drugs on sale on the internet and in the high street, and untold irreversible misery.

Now at least Mr Clegg, of all people, has exposed that lie. Let’s hope it’s not too late.