Mayor of London Suspended for "Insensitive" Remark.

The Independent reports that the three-man "Adjudication Panel for England" has suspended Lord Mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone of London for remarks that it ruled had been "unnecessarily insensitive and offensive".

The three-man Adjudication Panel for England unanimously ruled that Mr Livingstone had been "unnecessarily insensitive and offensive" to Evening Standard journalist, Oliver Finegold, by comparing him to a Nazi concentration camp guard in February last year.

We learn the background from "Sean Jones"'s posting at the AMERICAblog forum:

Some background:

(1) KL and the Evening Standard have some history. He has written for them as a columnist but they are generally critical of him politically.

(2) The ES is owned by the Daily Mail Group. The Daily Mail is a middle market paper aimed at right wing women who are afraid of asylum seekers (and "foreigners" generally) - I'm sure there is a US equivalent. The Evening Standard is less political but generally leans rightwards. It is known amongst my friends as the "Evening Nazi".

(3) KL attended a party given by Chris Smith a gay Labour member of Parliament

(4) KL was questioned outside the part y and appears to have taken the view that the reporter was there to pursue some sort of homophobic agenda.

(5) KL then made comments which another Labour MP: Sir Gerald Kaufman rightly (in my view) described as "crass and insensitive".

(6) The reporter pointed out that he was Jewish at the time by KL did little or nothing to retract.

Then it got really entertainingly bitter - see the Guardian's timeline at:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/ g...1717202,00.html
Sean Jones | Homepage | 02.24.06 - 8:58 am | #

Free speech is really under attack in Europe these days.  But Ken Livingstone is so popular that I have a feeling this is going to backfire.

•  The panel's decision is coming under a lot

  of fire.

  Here's one reaction, from blink.org.uk:

  Mayor's suspension a gross overreaction.  Today's decision by the Adjudication Panel for England to suspend the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has deeply shocked anti-racist activists and Londoners - both Black and white. Ken Livingstone has been a committed anti-racist for decades, fighting for racial equality and against all forms of racism, be it anti-semitism or Islamophobia.

  by lysias on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 08:37:52 AM PDT

  •  And I would be surprised

    if London's gay community doesn't speak up for Ken, given that the incident occurred outside a party for a gay Member of Parliament and that the reporter in question was, presumably in Ken's view, unduly harassing prominent gays and "gay sympathizers" by hanging around their events and trying to get photographs of them to use salaciously in the press.

    The times we live in are sadly shot through with fear and loathing and Nazism is increasingly readily referenced.  Livingstone went too far, using the Nazi analogy; he could have made his point without it, so why risk offending Jews, and why give an assist to political opponents -- conservatives, whom we all know love to play the "sensitive" card when it suits them -- by using it?

    It makes me roll my eyes that he had to blurt something like that when the point could have been made differently, but at the same time I totally understand why he was angry and support him wholeheartedly in his choice to criticize the reporter.

    by Loquatrix on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 09:27:34 AM PDT

    •  suspending the Mayor?

      because he was rude to a reporter? a reporter who was asking rude questions? what is Britain coming to? I guess I have a lot of questions, but this is just bizarre. Can the PM be suspended for a month for bring his office into disrepute by lying to the nation about Iraq? Sorry, I just can't see how it is a legal matter that Red Ken said something a reporter considered outrageous.

      by smintheus on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 10:22:35 AM PDT

      •  There's this thing called

        the Standards Board that Londoners are now rightly complaining is an unelected entity overruling the will of millions of London voters by suspending their Mayor.

        I haven't lived in my homeland of England for 12 years, so I'm not the best person to comment on the current state of press and personal free speech issues there, and nor do I know anything about this Standards Board.  But I do know that when a largely popular man of the people and renowned equal-rights enforcer like Ken Livingstone falls foul of a Nanny State entity like a Standards Board designed to enforce equal rights, there will be huffing and grumbling about it not just from the people who always huff and grumble about Nanny State stuff in Britain, but also from a lot of the people who ordinarily agree with the idea of a Standards Board to actively promote equality and tolerance.

        From my outside observer's point of view, what this all smells like to me is this:  Group of hack paparazzi tabloid photographers are hanging around outside an event celebrating a gay MP's 20 years being out in office.  They're looking for material they can send to conservative tabloids like the Daily Mail, which is read by the kind of people who haven't yet grown tired of hearing about other people's homosexuality and fantasising about what men do in bath houses.  So Ken Livingstone rightly calls them out as he's leaving the party, but unfortunately he does it with a Nazi reference (intimating that the photographers are complicit in the kind of persecution that the Nazis favoured) and by unfortunate coincidence the self-serving hack tabloid photographer just looking to make a quick buck off of tormenting other people just happened to be a Jew.  And so the conservative tabloids got their story -- it just wasn't "Ooooh, scandal, look who's a gay sympathizer going to gay parties!" as they expected, instead it was "Waaaa, Ken Livingstone is insensitive to Jews."

        Typical bullshit from wingnuts looking to undermine a popular leftie.  That's all it is, and it will be seen as such, I think.

        by Loquatrix on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 11:51:12 AM PDT

        •  probably will boost Livingston's popularity

          I simply cannot see what plausible grounds they had for inserting themselves into a testy exchange between a pol and a journalist. Livingston doesn't have to stroke this guy's wounded psyche if he doesn't want to. Really begs for a backlash against the nanny state.

          by smintheus on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 12:13:17 PM PDT

  •  Could the reason be his Venezuela comments?

    Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, accused the Bush administration in the United States of trying undermine democracy in Venezuela. Mr Livingstone points out that, since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has held more free and fair elections and referendums than any other country in the world.
    Ken Livingstone - Morning Star

    Read more here.

    by Thom K in CA on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 10:20:07 AM PDT

•  Red Ken is no stranger

  to controversy. He'll weather this. Surprising that it's been so long since they cooked up anything on him.

  by melvin on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 09:12:16 AM PDT

  •  Red Ken was quite right to blow up

    at that reporter, if the following transcript of the conversation posted by another poster at the AMERICAblog Forum is at all accurate:

    Finegold: Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did tonight go?
    Livingstone: How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment?
    Finegold: How did tonight go?
    Livingstone: Have you thought of having treatment?
    Finegold: Was it a good party? What does it mean for you?
    Livingstone: What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?
    Finegold: No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal and I'm actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go?
    Livingstone: Ah right, well you might be [Jewish], but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?
    Finegold: Great, I have you on record for that. So, how was tonight?
    Livingstone: It's nothing to do you with you because your paper is a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots.
    Finegold: I'm a journalist and I'm doing my job. I'm only asking for a comment.
    Livingstone: Well, work for a paper that doesn't have a record of supporting facism.

    Considering that Livingstone was leaving a party at the home of gay MP Chris Smith, the reporter's questions were really offensive.

    by lysias on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 09:30:08 AM PDT

    •  Offensive

      "How did tonight go?" is really offensive in your opinion? In what possible way?

      Does the wquestion "Nice weather were having, isn't it?" offend you as well?

      by Muwarr90 on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 09:33:18 AM PDT

      •  If you don't see the double entendre,

        I'm not going to explain it on a family forum.

        by lysias on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 09:35:50 AM PDT

        •  I'm sorry

          That's just plain BS.

          A politician can't be asked how a meeting with another poltician went if one of them is gay?  

          by Muwarr90 on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 09:41:46 AM PDT

•  Go, Ken, Go

  one of england's best, that man.

  by RabidNation on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 09:24:41 AM PDT

  •  Seems some people had it in for Red Ken.

    As Leslie Bunder explains: Board stitch-up Ken.

    by lysias on Fri Feb 24, 2006 at 02:09:05 PM PDT