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Ken Livingstone's suspension quashed
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Ken Livingstone's four-week suspension from the mayor's office has been quashed by a High Court judge.
He was suspended for his remarks to a Jewish journalist likening him to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5410872.stm
Good news.
Fuck Associated Newspapers.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
Much as Red Ken hates Associated Newspapers now, he didn't seem too miffed when the Evening Standard paid him a very large amount of money to be the food critic.
A drunk Ken Livingstone insulted one of their reporters. Members of local government agree to uphold certain standards, The Standards Board for England and the The Adjudication Panel believed Livingstone to be at fault. It wasn't Associated Newspapers that made the original ruling...
I don't think Livingstone should have been suspended as I don't like the idea of an unelected body holding such a power - although some kind of measure is needed in local govt.
Livingstone's behaviour anyway only confirmed that he's a twat, any decent person would have apologised. But considering the excellent performance of the Conservatives in the local elections in London Ken might not win at the next election...
He did apologise. He also said a few home truths. That wasn't what Associated Newspapers had expected though. The group have conducted a decades-long campaign of harrassement against Livingstone and wanting a gruelling apology and a humiliation.
In fact, on the day when Livingstone was due to give his now famous statement after the incident, the HateMail was already using the words 'gruelling' and 'humiliating climbdown'.
This truly was the dictionary definition of storm on a teacup, and one that was made so for political reasons.
By paying him a large amount of cash and giving him a job as a restaurant critic?
Man, I can feel the psychological damage.
Suggesting that a jewish reporter was no better than an Extermination Camp guard?
He didn't do it DELIBERATLEY to offend him. Like he even knew he was a Jew.
It was a complete over reaction. If he wasn't Jewish, there would have been no outcry. What, should people wear little badges symbolising thier religion so you don't accidently say something that might offend them?
If you really think reporters aren't any better you're pretty thick.
Livingstone had been at a party hosted by a senior Labour politician. It was legitimate for the reporter to cover it. Livingstone has been in the public eye for years and he's frequently courted publicity...
Livingstone was wasted. Listen to the clip on the news of him slurring...A simple apology would have been the right thing to do.
The entire London Assembly and Ken's Labour Deputy Mayor condemned the comments and called for him to apologise. But, then given Ken's cosying up to anti-Semites like al-Qaradawi he doesn't seem to care too much about offending Jewish Londoners.
Did he? When? All I remember was this.
Indeed they do, and when you are the Mayor of London then you really should expect them to be around when you attend a Party function, non?
But then it also wouldn't have been as much of an insult either.
"He added that over the past two weeks his "main concern" was for many Jewish Londoners, and regretted if his comments "may have been seen to downplay the horror and magnitude of the Holocaust".
""I wish to say to Londoners my words were not intended to cause such offence and that my view remains that the Holocaust against the Jews is the greatest racial crime of the 20th century."
And then later on I'm pretty sure he apologised to the Jewish community at large for any offence caused.
*goes to google*
I've found this so far. I don't know what the actual words were:
"The Mayor is expected to stage a partial climbdown by expressing "regret" to the Jewish community for his remarks to a Jewish journalist. He said he would make a statement to the Jewish community next Tuesday. His deputy, Nicky Gavron, said that he would express his regret "in his own way and in his own time".
What Livingstone did not do was to apologise to the journo in question or the odious organisation he works for. And rightly so.