The Holocaust occupies my mind now and again, much as it has for decades. There are always specific triggers for this. A film like Schindler’s List, for instance, or a second-hand copy of Elie Wiesel’s Night purchased outside a railway station. For the past couple of years though, my triggers have been comments made by our elected representatives in Parliament. It is the language used by these illustrious men and women — many of whom have been accused of serious crimes like murder, extortion, and kidnapping — that bothers me, because of how they strongly echo what was being said in Germany during the 1930s.

When a minister refers to people as termites or parasites, those being discriminated against are rendered less human almost instantly. This makes it simpler for those oppressing them to treat them with contempt because they have been stripped of their humanity. In a civilised country, this is the sort of language that invites imprisonment. In a country run by criminals, it is simply dismissed as an overenthusiastic election speech.