Tory aide gave reporter ‘Jewish nose check’

Alex Brown said the staffer grabbed his face to 'judge my Jewishness'

A political journalist has revealed how a parliamentary staffer aggressively pushed his head to one side to look at his nose in order to check that he was Jewish.

Alex Brown, correspondent for The Scotsman, said that he had only been working in Westminster for a matter of days when, during a conversation about his background, the Tory aide “grabbed my jaw, tilted my head to the side to look at my nose and spat out ‘you don’t look Jewish’.”

Writing in the newspaper about his own experiences of antisemitism following the abuse of Charedi youngsters in Oxford Street earlier this month, Mr Brown also revealed how he was urged not to report the Westminster incident because it might harm his career.

“Her friends told me not to report it, stressing I was new and they could be useful,” he wrote.