If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Red Ken gets a month suspension
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Ken has been suspended for a month after his comments to the Evening Standard journalist. What a joke! The comment would have been offensive if and only if Ken had known beforehand that the man was Jewish, which he clearly didnt.
Evening Standard - spit!
Evening Standard - spit!
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
0
Comments
It turned out that the journalist was Jewish and he got 'really offended' and wasnt in anyway pushed forward by his paper which has an obvious grudge against Ken.
Then again, who the fuck cares! Red Ken is a twat anyway! lol
An extract from Livingstone's fantastic statement last year when the non-story broke out:
The statement in full
who was appointed by an elected PM
And where did that PM get elected? Not in London thats for sure.
No, the Mayor shouldnt be punished for expressing his opinion by people who have no democratic mandate from London. This isnt an issue of him breaking the law, its an issue of his views and opinions, which is surely only the business of the electorate in London.
I don't think Blair's mandate extends to messing around in municipal London politics - it was Londoners alone who voted for their mayor and it shouldn't be up to some panel appointed by an appointee to remove him.
If the First Minister of the Scottish or Welsh Parliaments was removed by an appointed panel there'd be a huge outcry, and there's more people in London than in Scotland and Wales put together so I'm surprised there's not similar outrage here.
I don’t really have a strong opinion on this decision, there are other instances of misconduct however by Ken that are far more offensive. I think it’s quite disgusting for a Mayor of London who is supposedly representing all Londoners – including women, gays and Jews to invite a fundamentalist Muslim cleric to London – al Qaradawi. (al-Qaradawi has advocated beating up women, stoning gay people and blowing up children. Rather confusing I must say that a left wing mayor has no qualms about sharing a platform with the Muslim equivalent of Nick Griffin).
Excellent piece from a little while back on London’s twat of a mayor here.
That said if we want him out we should vote him out. I have grave concerns about an unlected body being able to suspend elected politicians, except in cases where they have been convicted of a criminal offence.
I wonder if had the journalist been disabled or homosexual this story would have been blown out of proportion in such a way. Shame on the journalist too.
Although I’m sure many – including Ken himself would defend – if not urge the Adjudication Panel for England to suspend a local councillor for example who made insulting remarks about Muslims.
Ken would never have invited an extreme anti-Muslim speaker to London. Yet he had no doubts about inviting al-Qaradawi – an anti-Semitic homophobe that condones domestic violence.
His behaviour towards the Evening Standard reporter together with his sharing a platform with an anti-Semite quite understandably offended many Londoners.
It’s utter nonsense to claim that had Ken shown the same level of disrespect to the black or Muslim community that there would not have been equal, if not more criticism of him.
The incident was blown out of all proportion on purpose by the Daily Mail Group of course- all the more ironic given the company's long history of anti-semitism (if no longer around today), prejudice, hatred, bigotry and racism.
He possibly would - perhaps I should have referred to Ken as an odious hypocritical piece of shit. It doesn't change that if he's to be suspended/got rid off it should be through the ballot box unless he was convicted of a crime
Most Jewish Londoners were offended that the Mayor of London thought it perfectly acceptable to share a platform with Islamofascist al-Qaradawi. (Although a coalition of gays, lesbians, feminists, Hindus, secularists and democracy activists as well as Jews opposed Ken on that).
And even Ken himself admitted that his later Nazi remark was offensive. The reporter deserved a simple apology.
As far as I know when Lord Rothermere took control of the Daily Mail under his leadership the newspaper supported Oswald Mosley and sympathised with Nazism/Fascism – however Lord Rothermere no longer controls the Daily Mail and has been dead for decades. There are many, a huge number actually of criticisms that you can direct towards the Daily Mail group although I think it’s a bit unfair to censure the group for the actions of one person in charge of the newspaper over seventy years ago. There’s not really any connection between Lord Rothermere and the beliefs and actions of the group today. Should we boycott companies that exist today – who profited from the crimes of Nazi Germany? Should we criticise the present German government because a previous Nazi German government carried out awful atrocities? To both of these questions, I would say no. I don’t see the purpose in boycotting German pharmaceutical companies or Swiss banks. (Not that I can afford to use the latter).
Clearly, from your beliefs towards the Daily Mail you would disagree with me on German pharmaceutical companies and Swiss banks - unless you're some kind of hypocrite.
What would your opinion be of say hypothetically a Conservative member of the London assembly who faced the same fate of Ken from the adjudications panel for causing offence to the Muslim community? I know for sure Ken would be the first to praise the panel’s decision if that happened.
If Ken had done the reasonable thing and apologised like his Deputy Nicky Gavron and others advised him to this could have all been avoided. I don’t condone Adjudication Panel’s decision but I can’t say I have any sympathy whatsoever for Ken.
As Livingstone said it certainly wasn't a "brief flirtation" with Nazism and/or fascism. It was far longer than that. And the prejudice, bigotry and sometimes hatred towards minority races has never dissapeared. The Jews ceased to be a target of the paper's vile campaign many years ago, for sure... but only to be replaced by other minorities.
To take lectures from the Daily Mail group about offending other races/religions/groups is rather like taking lectures in humanity from Genghis Khan.
Poor Ken.
Although the reporter does sound like a whinging bastard.
A lot of them will make up anything or slant the truth to sell a few more papers.
That's journalism! Thats the general idea of it.
If the Mayor of any other city or town made this type of remark nobody would notice.