Mayor of London suspended

I had a little stop gap post on Ken Livingstone's suspension from his job as Mayor of London - which was basically a gloating poke at an adjudication panel's ruling that Ken Livingstone should be suspended from his job for a month. So I'm now republishing with a bit more detail.

What did Ken do to deserve this suspension? Basically he called someone a name. He compared a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard - and then did it again after the reporter said that he was Jewish and found it offensive.

What was the reporter doing? His job. Maybe the reporter Oliver Finegold was being a little pesky (who knows?), but that's what reporters do. He asked a public servant and a public figure a question on a public matter in a public place. You can hear the recording for yourself at the Evening Standard.

First Ken denied making those statements, but Mr Finegold being a reporter had a tape running. Then Ken claimed Mr Finegold was being rude, but from the tape, that doesn't appear to be the case.

What would a grown-up mayor have done? He would have apologised. He would have apologised to the reporter and to the people of London, and it would have been over. Instead he called the Daily Mail group (for which the Evening Standard reporter works) a bunch of Nazi sympathisers - who Ken grants have now turned from hating Jews to hating Muslims and asylum seekers.

Then Ken's co-workers (the Greater London Assembly - our big council) said "Ken, be a big boy and say you're sorry." But Ken refused to apologise. He didn't even apologise for any offense he might have caused (that old get-out) but did say it wasn't his intention to offend the Jewish community of London.

Now could his remarks have been construed as unacceptably anti-semitic? Maybe. (I sure wouldn't like to be compared to a Nazi concentration camp guard and as a Londoner I was offended by his remarks and I'm not Jewish.) Though when you compare what he said to Ken's cosy relationship with nasty, anti-semitic, homophobe, mysogynist Egyptian cleric al Qaradawi, his remarks hardly even seem noteworthy in the anti-semite stakes.

Ken you brought this on yourself, you stupid mf.

On the other hand, who the heck are these people on this Panel of Adjudication who can remove the properly elected Mayor after a meeting of a few hours? Ken says it undermines democratic principles and is an insult to the people of London. On that, Ken, you and I are in agreement.

Ken you've wasted taxpayer money again because of your stupid arrogance. I can't help but gloat at your misfortune, you stupid, reactionary, anti-American ass. But I'm sickened that London is shamed first by having a loud mouth mayor and then by having him removed.

But as this post from Harry's Place says:

That said, the only way to counter left-racism and the "Galloway-lite" religious communalist politics which Ken Livingstone, and his Socialist Action chums have been pioneering, is for us to organise, politically, against it.

An administrative or quasi judicial 'solution' is not only a mirage: it is also an affront to democracy.