Ken Livingstone

"Two-States" Ken Livingstone Apologises to Jews

From a witness Last Thursday, 7 December, the London Jewish Forum was launched at City Hall. There, the Mayor of london, Ken Livingstone surprised the audience by apologising for the offence he caused with his "nazi camp guard" jibe at the Evening Standard journalist, Oliver Feingold. Disarmingly, he quoted a rabbi who had said of him, "Ken's no anti-Semite, he's just very rude". He said that he did not dispute this estimation. This was Ken in what he himself once described as "cynical soft sell' mode. Or, 'the loveable rogue' ploy, as someone in the audience put it. There was more. The once...

Fares Not Fair

Four quid for a Zone 1 single cash fare?! Is Livingstone having a laugh?! He might thing he is encouraging people onto Oyster, but the truth is that he is ripping passengers off. And to think this man made his name over twenty years agao with a policy called Fares Fair!

It would be nice to see the...

Sick? Sacked!

Asked by a business owner what to do with a worker who has been off sick for several weeks, Ken Livingstone replied:
(a) allow their doctor to help them recover their health?
(b) offer them all the assistance possible to speed their recovery?
(c) be grateful that they are not at work where their...

Livingstone and the “Concentration Camp Guard”

...To go from vaguely calling Finegold a “German war criminal” when he thought he was a mere employee of the Evening Standard, to pointedly comparing him with a Nazi concentration camp guard when he learned that he is Jewish, does exhibit the typical pseudo-left reflex of identifying Israelis or Jews whose politics or activities you don’t like with some aspect of Nazism. The impulse is to hurt, wound, kick in the crotch.... By John O'Mahony “The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable” was how Oscar Wilde famously described fox-hunting. The unspeakable in full and ridiculous pursuit of...

News Line editorial of April 9, 1983, and comment by Ken Livingstone, on "the Zionist connection"

The Zionist connection. News Line editorial, Saturday, April 9, 1983 A powerful Zionist connection runs from the so-called left of the Labour Party right into the centre of Thatcher's government in Downing Street. There is no difficulty what ever in proving this. Top of the list, we have the most recent appointment of Mr Stuart Young, a director of the 'Jewish Chronicle', as youngest-ever chairman if the BBC, having been a governor only since 1981. He is the brother of Mr David Young, another Thatcher appointee who is chairman of the Manpower Services Commission. This is the key organisation...

Mayor Livingstone, anti-semitism, and the "anti-Zionist" left

Accompanying this story: Labour Herald caricature of Begin . Click here for the text of the Newsline editorial of 9 April 1983 and Ken Livingstone's accompanying comment. . Click here for image of that Newsline editorial. A drunken Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, leaving a party, accused an Evening Standard journalist of being the equivalent of a Nazi concentration camp guard. On being told that the man was Jewish and therefore took especially strong exception to what he said, he refused to withdraw the remark or to apologise for it. He stuck to that attitude even after he’d sobered up...

Is this the voice of the left?

A contested election for the Labour leadership would be “virtually meaningless” as “there's such an overwhelming consensus that Gordon will succeed”. Meanwhile, the post of Labour deputy leader should be abolished: “I’d have the elected leader who becomes Prime Minister — they appoint the deputy that they want and can trust and can work with”. Geoff Hoon? Jack Straw? Some other “Brownite” apparatchik? In fact, these are the words of London mayor Ken Livingstone. In an interview recorded earlier this month, Livingstone told GMTV’s Sunday morning programme that he had “moved on” from his...

Reinstate Ken Livingstone!

By Amina Saddiq Mayor of London Ken Livingstone’s suspension from office by the Adjudication Panel of the Standards Board of England has been “frozen” by the High Court pending an appeal. Whatever the final outcome, the issues posed for socialists and serious democrats are clear. As we have said many times before, Livingstone is not a left-wing, let alone a working-class, politician. His record, from “working closely” with London business to siding with the police against anti-capitalist protesters to calling for tube workers to cross RMT picketlines, speaks volumes. On the question in dispute...

Reinstate Livingstone!

The decision on 24 February by an adjudication panel of the Standards Board for England to suspend London Mayor Ken Livingstone is an outrage against democracy. Livingstone should be reinstated. Yes, Livingstone is a shyster. We have often criticised him. Yes, he should have apologised for his outburst against a Jewish newspaper reporter. We said so at the time . Having seen Ken Livingstone endorse a campaign denouncing us as part of a "world Zionist conspiracy" , back in 1983, yes, we think his sort of "anti-Zionism" does tip over into effective anti-semitism. But Livingstone was elected. He...

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