In defence of Sam

Twenty-year olds, particularly the males, are almost by definition uncooked. The hope always is that by thirty, perhaps even twenty-five with a bit of luck, they will emerge from the oven of life well-baked, their bottoms echoing hollow when tapped. Some are born wise and firm, some will be soggy idiots for the whole of their lives.

Never shy of stating the bleedin' obvious, I wrote a piece on this theme about five years ago, centred as it happens around Aristotle's opinion that the young lack the wisdom for political science.

I know my readers will find this difficult to accept, but I, too, needed a good while in the oven before I was finally done – some alleged friends would say that the process has still some way to go. Whatever.

Fortunately for me, in those days when I and all my friends were young and stupid, there were no CCTV systems, no smartphones with audio and video recording, no social media platforms to expose your stupidity to a waiting world. But, more importantly, there was no justiciable concept of 'hate speech' or a legal definition of 'offending someone'.

When we idiots said, wrote or did something stupid, it usually evaporated immediately. Even if your stupidity made it into the local paper, that, as everyone knows, was only one step away from wrapping fish and chips. We had space and time to 'jump over our own shadows' as the Germans say (über den eigenen Schatten springen), to 'come to our senses' (sich eines Besseren besinnen).

We might do this on our own, or some person we respect might take us to one side and gently explain our idiocy, or, usually, some woman would point this out forcefully (expletives not deleted). In contrast nowadays, one stupid statement or action becomes the curse ('vile!'), Lady Macbeth's irremovable stain, the inexpungeable error in a Greek tragedy that pursues the cursed one with Nemesis and the Furies.

Good luck, Sam! You are going to need it.

Three years ago we discussed Friedrich Nietzsche's advice on achieving happiness: forgetting. As we pointed out then, we are living in an unhappy, disaffected world in which nothing is forgotten and in which whatever we say or do could end in disaster as the woke forces of social order – the cops, the courts, the media and social media – jump on us one after the other with their audio and video recordings, their interview protocols and all the apparatus of condemnation. We acquire a shadow over which we can never jump.

Samuel Williams is an idiot, uncooked, but for his fifteen seconds of public idiocy he may become a lifelong pariah. We shall see whether he will be able to continue with his degree; if he sticks on the political track, his current idiocy will always be held against him and in any other field, what employer will take a risk on employing a noted antisemite such as him?

Update 18.10.2025

Laurie Wastell, an associate editor at the Daily Sceptic, attempted in The Spectator to put the free speech case for Sam's idiocy. In the comments to his article the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade were out in force:

In my book he deserves to be arrested for that admission alone. And a stiff sentence to boot. ● Frankly, we Jews and Zios are so inured to being hated, that being reviled by snotty-nosed kid in a keffiya really doesn’t bother us a jot. But I think most of us would draw the line at him encouraging his mates to kill and then bury us. ● It’s not an arrest for ‘free speech’, it’s an arrest for incitement to murder. If you can’t tell the difference, you shouldn’t be writing for this magazine. ● If that chant wasn’t incitement to violence I don’t know what would be! ● Are you for real? This idiot youngster should be pursued as aggressively as Lucy Connolly and given a criminal record that will ruin his career and travel plans. Actually, he needs to be given a hard 5-knuckle sandwich in his stupid face. ● These chants are nothing more than jew hatred. I agree that this young guy is misguided and may not even realise what he is saying but a line has been crossed. ● He has committed a repeated incitement to murder. He has also demonstrated he is really stupid and certainly unworthy of a place at a second rate Polytechnic - never mind Oxford. ● The message has to go out loud and clear: threaten the Jews of Great Britain and you're going to jail for a long time. I would give this little twerp the exact same sentence Lucy Connoly received. ● There was a time when this cretinous little shitstain would have been dealt with locally and immediately through the vector of a swift kick to the bollocks. ● Nothing to do with free speech or not. He should be expelled from Oxford for having to "workshop" 11 words. ● Yes his chant is vile; yes he may be exhorting others to kill. ● Just ignore the idiot. ● He should be arrested, charged and convicted, and imprisoned for at least five years. On his release he should never be able to find work, and should be disqualified from receiving any social security. Let his family wealth sustain his existence. ● But he deserves to be expelled from his University, on the grounds that his intellectual powers are just not up to snuff. ● Send him down despicable cretin that he is. ● This kid is trouble. Nip it in the bud and make sure he receives a solid criminal record and a tag, that should well and truly screw the rest of his life up - it's what the little pr*ck deserves.

It looks like Sam might be in a bit of trouble…

For about twenty years Spectator readers enjoyed reading about Jeffrey Bernard's feckless, alcoholic 'Low Life'. In 1997 Bernard's body gave up the unequal struggle. His 'Low Life' column was taken up by another hapless, all-round reprobate, Jeremy Clarke (d. 2023). Readers down the years took the self-destructive stupidity of these two with great tolerance – a tolerance that they will not extend to a stupid twenty year-old student.

Update 19.10.2025

Samuel Williams may have been one of those who 'workshopped' the antisemitic chant, but this implies there were other authors at work in its creation. Will they be getting their collars felt, too, for co-authoring the chant?

Likewise the group of adherents who were surrounding him during his call to arms, mostly happy looking young women – what of them? Will they be getting their collars felt, too, for chanting the antisemitic doggerel?

It's yet another of the properties of social media about which we should be mindful: its tight focus and masssive reality overwhelms the wider context.