[In the book under review] When left-wing activists — Momentum, for instance? — organise, it is righteous, but when "Zionists" organise, it is sinist… - Tanya Gold

In his actions on child abuse and Aids, Joseph Ratzinger has colluded in the protection of paedophiles and the deaths of millions of Africans. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Pope John Paul II's chief enforcer), it was Ratzinger's job to investigate the child abuse scandal that plagued the Catholic church for decades. And how did he do it? In May 2001 he wrote a confidential letter to Catholic bishops, ordering them not to notify the police – or anyone else – about the allegations, on pain of excommunication. He referred to a previous (confidential) Vatican document that ordered that investigations should be handled "in the most secretive way . . . restrained by a perpetual silence". Excommunication is a joke to me, perhaps to you, but to a Catholic it means exclusion and perhaps hellfire – for trying to protect a child. Well, God is love.

Celebrity involvement in politics is a wretched thing. It should be consigned to dust, especially post-Jimmy Savile – who spent many holidays at Chequers with Margaret Thatcher, during which he used to write "In case of national emergency, phone Jimmy Savile" on every notepad in the house, should you need a nightmarish image to chew on. Have our leaders not learned to hide from these terrible narcissists? Celebrity is trivial, and when it moves close to power, it trivialises that too. The gongs for light entertainment heroes, meanwhile, insult everybody: a gong for a laugh. Is leering on Strictly Come Dancing and clutching female contestants' arms really a public service meriting a knighthood?

It's a truism that every wretch in the village is a king on the day of the pogrom because he is not a Jew. And here is his book.