THEY had a couple of hot days in Spain two weeks ago. According to the Guardian, it was a 1-in-40,000 years event, a claim based on ‘weather attribution’ computer models.
This latest heatwave is said to have set a temperature record for April in Spain, but it was only 0.2C higher than the previous record – hardly a 40,000-year event! Moreover the record was set next to the tarmac at Cordoba Airport
So Martin Rowson understands that satire can have questionable motives, that the political and social context is important, and that cartoons can contribute to hatred of a minority religious or ethnic group. The question, then, is why this understanding seems to fail him when it comes to Jews.
Academic research established that John Edward Taylor, the journalist and cotton merchant who founded the newspaper in 1821 had links to slavery, mainly through the textile industry, along with at least nine of his 11 backers who funded the Guardian’s creation.
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