London mayor on timeout for nawty behavior....

London mayor suspended from office over Nazi gibe

The Associated Press
Published February 24, 2006, 6:51 AM CST


LONDON -- Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from office for four weeks on Friday for bringing his office into disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

"His treatment of the journalist was unnecessarily insensitive and offensive," said David Laverick, chairman of the Adjudication Panel for England, the disciplinary panel that ruled on the case. The suspension is effective March 1. Livingstone has the right to appeal the ruling.

Laverick said the panel objected to the fact that Livingstone refused to apologize.

"The mayor does seem to have failed, from the outset of this case, to have appreciated that his conduct was unacceptable," Laverick said.

Livingstone did not attend Friday's session to hear the ruling. The panel made no recommendation whether his pay should be suspended.

The mayor had told the panel that he had not meant to offend the Jewish community when he asked Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold whether he had been a "German war criminal."

Finegold, who had approached the mayor for comment after a reception for the gay and lesbian community in February, replied that he was Jewish.

Livingstone told the reporter he was "just like a concentration camp guard. You're just doing it because you're paid to, aren't you?"





Copyright © 2006, The Associated Press

Okay I will go out on a limb here. I read all the BBC coverage of this thing and I think it's outrageous that this "panel" has the authority to do what it did.

The Mayor was "doorstepped" by a highly aggressive reporter as he was leaving a GBLT event, he clearly didn't know the man was Jewish at first and all he said to the fellow was "you are like a concentration camp guard."

The impllication being that the reporter was being offensive or immoral (probably in reference to the GBLT event, although we aren't told that), and the mayor was comparing him to someone who does offensive/immoral things (even though they know they are doing it), "for the money." How is that turned into a "Nazi gibe aimed at a Jewish man" by the press? They also convieniently leave out that the reporter yelled and swore at him as he left.

Also, the Mayor has a point that he is elected by the people and is answerable only to the people or to a court of law. How is it that the Mayor of the capital city of a major European country can be removed from office by an unelected panel of three people because they personally think he "didn't apologise sincerely?"

I mean poor choice of words sure, but the issue is, should a duly elected leader of a major city be sidelined over a complaint from one idiot adjudicated by a panel of three PC "experts." I wonder how much this panel cost the taxpayers? I wonder how much not having a Mayor for a while will cost the City of London? Over one (likely homophobic) reporter's "taking offence?"

1. The Standard is an utterly despicable rag, and anyone who works there should be ashamed of themselves and deserves any abuse they get (incidentally, Associated, which owns it was very supportive of Hitler and sundry fascists in the past). They also famously hate Livingstone and attack him, as he knows.

2. It was a pretty rubbish comment, showing Godwin's Law early - one can probably blame the booze - but saying "you're a Nazi" / "you're just like Hitler" is pretty standard rhetoric, applied to traffic wardens, board moderators etc etc.

3. Livingstone is unpopular with the current government as well, as he stood as an independent to defeat their chosen bootlicker. I wonder whether that had an influence.

4. Suspending him for a month? Who are these people, as Dianne says? I don't know, and I live here. Nobody seems to know. How do they have the ability to suspend an elected official from doing an important job, without any oversight at all?

Incidentally, Any Questions (a very long-running program on BBC Radio 4, with various politicians and pundits being asked their opinions on current affairs by the audience) just covered this in the last few minutes, and every single panelist - even the hard-right old-school Tory Norman Tebbit - said it was unjustified. Also, the audience were apparently almost entirely against it, according to a show of hands.

I would have suspected as much. Suspending the mayor for a number of weeks as a result of this comment seems off the deep end. I really had to look twice at the headline "mayor suspended". I thought it was a teaser since you would not actually ground the mayor for sassing a reporter with tasteless comment.

To quote the article, "The [panel] does seem to have failed, from the outset of this case, to have appreciated that [their] conduct was unacceptable."

I'm with the "outraged from Harringay" side. This is a non-elected right wing panel interfering with the work of a very popular and very elected Mayor. This whole issue is blown out of all proportion by a gutter rag papparazzi hack with nothing better to do.
Anyone who's had anything to do with the papparazzi will have some sympathy with Ken Livingstone's comment. It's also worth noting that the Mayors own second in command is Jewish and has come out on record as saying Livingstone hasn't got a anti-semetic bone in his body. We all know ( that is anyone with a working brain cell ) what's going down here.