Livingstone may be banned for 'Nazi' gibe

[emad]

31 August 2005 15:37 Home > News > UK > UK Politics
Livingstone may be banned for 'Nazi' gibe
By Terri Judd
Published: 31 August 2005

The Mayor of London could be banned from office and forced to make an apology to a journalist after a government watchdog announced that he was to face a disciplinary hearing.

Ken Livingstone has refused to apologise since likening a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard at a reception six months ago. As calls from the Jewish community and politicians from all parties mounted for an apology, he argued that he had been rude to reporters for nearly 25 years and that he would continue to be so.

It was announced yesterday that he would be called to appear before the independent Adjudication Panel for England to face allegations that he failed to treat others with respect.

The Mayor's office said the Standards Board for England - the local-government watchdog - had found no evidence that he had failed to comply with the Greater London Authority's code of conduct. But it acknowledged that he still faced accusations that he had treated a journalist with disrespect, and this matter had been referred to the president of the Adjudication Panel.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article309220.ece

[Greeby]

1. What they're not telling you

Is that the reporter was with the Evening Standard, which is owned by the same group as the Daily Mail and Daily Express. The Mail was pro-facist and truly anti-semitic during the years before WWII, and continues to advocate actions which I consider neo-facist. So Ken's "Nazi" comment hits closer to the bone than they can stand

[emad]

2. The reporter is a Jew and has gone on record that not only did

Livingstone know this but that he was pissed when the slur occured.

[non sociopath skin]

3. I like and respect Ken Livingstone but in my book anti-semitism ...

... is anti-semitism and unacceptable.

Even when you're angry. Or pissed.

The Skin

[emad]

4. Livingstone's rant should have been directed at the Evening

Standard and not it's messenger.

When the GLC was abolished the paper ran a lengthy series of stories about Ken and his involvement with Robert Maxwell's property scams in North London. Livingstone threatened to sue but backed out at the last moment after some protracted legal negotiations concerning the hand-over of the management of Hampstead Heath to the Corporation of London - and not to the London Borough of Camden.

Some time later a bi-monthly closed-circulation UK newsletter - Defence Intelligence Monitor - linked Livinstone to a Thatcher whitewash over the Children of God pedophile brothel in Hampstead. This too was the threat of legal defamation action attempts by Livingstone, who eventually backed off after Robert Maxwell's bastard son David Freeman was arrested and charged with four counts of sex abuse of minors.

[T_i_B]

7. Ken Livingstone has already tried that trick

When the story became big enough news he issued a statement attacking the Mail and Evening Standard. It was actually kinda hypocritical of him really as he has written for the London Evening Standard himself before now.

And as we can see, that tactic failed to put a stop to this story. Here's an old thread on the subject.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x1990#2043

[evermind]

8. Was his comment really anti-semitic?

He said: "you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?"

It's a frequently used analogy - which implies that someone engaged in immoral activity should look to their own conscience rather than simply what they've been told to do.

Addressing it to a Jewish individual does not make it anti-semitic; indeed, the force of the analogy rests on an appreciation of the wrongness of the anti-semitism that created the Nazi concentration camps.

I think this "anti-semitic" business is just a smear, myself, cooked up by a side of the media that's been smearing Ken since the 80s. Maybe he shouldn't have been so rude, but merely mentioning concentration camps to a Jew is not by itself an act of anti-semitism.

Note also that the article says the "Standards Board for England" found his remarks in compliance with the GLA's code of conduct (which I'm sure anti-semitic remarks would not be in compliance with), so I'm not the only one thinking like this.

The anti-semitism smear is effective, but the actual story is now about whether he was simply too rude, as I read it.

[non sociopath skin]

9. Accusing someone jewish of being like a concentration camp guard?

Would YOU do that?

The Skin

[evermind]

11. It may be insensitive and tasteless, but anti-semitic? I don't think so.

[non sociopath skin]

15. Then we must agree to differ.

For me, it is far too close to anti-semitism to be acceptable discourse.

For you or Ken, obviously not.

Suppose Rush Limbaugh had accused a liberal Jewish newsman as behaving like a concentration camp guard. Would we have just let it go?

The Skin

[evermind]

17. I think it's easy to get inflamed by words,

"concentration camp" in proximity to the journo's saying he was Jewish, in this case, but if you analyse the remark (as I attempted to do in my original reply to your post, up above) I don't see how it is anti-semitic.

To my mind, anti-semitism is a fear or hatred of people because of their Jewishness. If I gratuitously stamp on a man's toe, and he happens to be Jewish, that does not make me an anti-semite - rude and a jerk, absolutely, but not an anti-semitic jerk. If I stamp on his toe because he's Jewish, then I'm being anti-semitic.

I'm not sure how you construe Livingstone's remark as showing a fear or hatred of Jews - as I pointed out, the force of his remark depends on accepting the evilness of the concentration camps, implying the opposite.

(Edit for spelling)

(And on further edit: I did not say it was acceptable discourse - plenty of discourse is unacceptable without it being anti-semitic - in fact I said it was tasteless and insensitive. Careful with your accusations, please! :-) )

[LeftishBrit]

21. It would be insensitive, but whether it would be anti-semitic...

depends on the circumstances. If he said it ONLY about Jews, then I would think it was anti-semitic. If he said it about all liberals, Jewish or not, then I'd say he was a dangerous nutter and off his flaming trolley, but not an anti-semite.

I'm Jewish, and found Livingstone's remark tasteless, but I think that the tabloid press need to clean up their own act re racially insensitive comments before they can complain about what others say to them. Perhaps Finegold, having been on the receiving end for once, will decide that perhaps there's something in all this PC lark after all, and campaign for the tabloids to stop their anti-'PC' rants and have some sensitivity to all ethnic groups. Or, more likely, he won't.

[Kipling]

24. Yes. I'm Jewish and it wouldn't bother me.

The principle of following human morality instead of orders was established against these guards, which is why Livingstone chose the phrase. It has NOTHING to do with him being Jewish.

[emad]

25. Humbug. He said those words because he was pissed. And

because he has loathed the Evening Standard since the time they did a series of exposes about paedophile scandals in Islington under Margaret Hodge.

He defended her agaist the indefensible and then started a war with the paper that he needs more that it needs HIM.

And as for the reported, it's up to HIM and not YOU. HE says he's offended as a Jew.

Enough for anybody to be outraged.

[Nihil]

13. Correct "like a concentration camp guard" is not anti-semitic ...

... but people can't sell newspapers if they simply report the truth.

Would *you* be interested in a story with the headline along the lines
of "Ken Livingston rude to paparazzi"?

Now do you see why they changed their slant? :-)

[LeftishBrit]

16. Good point!

I don't see that it's anti-semitic. I think that he would have said it about anyone associated with the Daily Mail. OK, he was insensitive in not taking account of the fact that this might be more upsetting to a Jew than a non-Jew. But I've never noticed that the Daily Mail-ites are very much in favour of taking account of the sensitivities of different ethnic groups! In fact, what Finegold wants of Livingstone is just what people like him, in other circumstances, would call 'political correctness' in a sneery tone. I'm all in favour of a certain amount of political correctness - just one form of ordinary good manners- but it seems a bit hypocritical for the Daily Mail-ites to sneer at it in general, and then demand it for themselves.

[evermind]

18. Re: changing their slant

I'm sure there's more to it than that - the Mail and their ilk have been gunning for "Red Ken" since the early eighties, and they'll use any ammo they can get to pursue their vendetta. They'll take every opportunity they can to make him look as bad as possible. It was their decades-long campaign of vilification that prompted Livingstone's regrettable remarks in the first place.

[Mr Creosote]

6. So which group is it

that owns both the Daily Mail and Daily Express then?

[evermind]

10. I don't think they're owned by the same group

The Daily Mail, Sunday Mail, and the Evening Standard, belong to Associated Newspapers group, itself owned by DMGT holding company, 60% owned by chairman Viscount Rothermere's family according to http://www.hoovers.com/daily-mail-and-general-trust/--ID__93505--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml

There's a great page at http://www.ketupa.net/dmg.htm that gives information on this company, including a quote from Rothermere's July 7, 1939, telegram to Von Ribbentrop: "Our two great Nordic countries should pursue resolutely a policy of appeasement for, whatever anyone may say, our two great countries should be the leaders of the world" !

The extent of their holdings ( http://www.ketupa.net/dmg1.htm ) is surprising (or was to me).

Rothermere's fascism is well known, including his famous "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" article, and his involvement in the British Union of Fascists, but I don't know whether this constitutes an individual aberration or a family tradition (certainly, perusal of Daily Mail headlines might lead one to the latter view..)

By contrast, the Daily Express is owned by Richard Desmond's United Newspapers. Desmond is well known for having been the publisher of respected academic periodicals such as Asian Babes and Big Ones, and still owns porno satellite channel The Fantasy Channel.

Far from common ownership, the Mail and Express have for a long time engaged in a sniping match, with the Mail taking swings at Desmonds history as a pornographer, and the Express delighting in headlines such as `Daily Mail Link to Vice Girls.'

[Mr Creosote]

22. Like you I know very well

that they're not owned by the same group. I just was curious as to what answer the original poster might come up with, but she / he has fallen strangely silent on this one.

[Nihil]

5. BFD

It's a bit rich for a shit-shovelling paparazzi cockroach to go whining
that the person he was harassing called him names!

:eyes:

[emad]

12. Politicians suing newspapers? Just remember Jonathan Aitken

and his 'bent and twisted cancer of journalism' rant at the Guardian that got him an 18 months custodial sentence for perjury.

Ken needs the Standard more than the Standard needs Ken.

[Nihil]

14. Remember it well - with a smile!

Was smugly amused when Aitken got his come-uppance but I still dislike
the "spin" on this case ... when the molehill best described as
"politician rude to rude person" becomes a mountain like this, my
sympathy does not lie with the person doing the harassing ...

[emad]

19. My biggest smile went up the day that Waterstone's in Piccadilly

displayed Aitken's book "Pride & Perjury" in the well-signposted 'Sword and Sorcery' category of adult fiction.

Someone in that branch had a damned good sense of the absurd....or maybe just related to the editor of the Guardian.

MUST get the photo of that bookshelf scanned and posted on DU!

[evermind]

20. Hahaha! That would be a reference to his

"Sword of Truth" remarks, I presume. And his status as a fantasist of note, of course..

[moggie]

23. Could be banned from office?

Seems that the standards for local government are much tougher than those for central government:

Lie to the country to take us into a war of dubious legality resulting in the deaths of many thousands of people: no problem!

Be rude to a hack: you're toast.

I'm bothered by Ken's choice of words, but he's consistently supported anti-racism, back to his GLC days. On the other hand, he's often been critical of Israel's policies, and there are people who regard him as anti-semitic because of that.