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Posted on 02/24/2006 5:35:15 AM PST by Abathar
LONDON -- Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from office for four weeks on Friday for bringing his office into disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
"His treatment of the journalist was unnecessarily insensitive and offensive," said David Laverick, chairman of the Adjudication Panel for England, the disciplinary panel that ruled on the case. The suspension is effective March 1. Livingstone has the right to appeal the ruling.
Laverick said the panel objected to the fact that Livingstone refused to apologize.
"The mayor does seem to have failed, from the outset of this case, to have appreciated that his conduct was unacceptable," Laverick said.
Livingstone did not attend Friday's session to hear the ruling. The panel made no recommendation whether his pay should be suspended.
The mayor had told the panel that he had not meant to offend the Jewish community when he asked Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold whether he had been a "German war criminal."
Finegold, who had approached the mayor for comment after a reception for the gay and lesbian community in February, replied that he was Jewish.
Livingstone told the reporter he was "just like a concentration camp guard. You're just doing it because you're paid to, aren't you?"
Red Ken at it again.
Much as I dislike and detest that prat Livingstone I would rather have Free Speech in the UK than laws against thoughtcrime.
Seriously, all that is wrong with this world can be traced back to liberals.
If Livingstone had been a private citizen, you would have had a point. But he is a public official and he compromised the dignity of office by what he did.
Uh well. Red Ken is compromising the dignity of office by his existence.
I'm coming late to this party but I think this is not good, even though Ken is a jerk.
Just because someone was elected does not mean that voters conferred on them total power to behave however they want without contradiction or consequences.
They are elected knowing full well that they can be cashiered by an ombudsman or other official whose responsibilities include shielding the public from out-of-control officials.
Checks and balances.
The free speech proscriptions are happening in Canada, too. And you'd be shocked at what's happening on college campuses with their hate and offensive speech codes today.
The ioh-so-tolerant liberals strike again!
Agreed. Red Ken is loathesome, and of course elected officials morally have a greater responsibility to be judicious, but I don't like the idea of punishment for speech that offends someone, even if the speech is heinous. There should be no right not to be offended. Clear and present danger and direct incitement to violence should be the limits of free speech.
So, vote him out.
Again, plenty of public officials are answerable to more than just the voting public. In a parliamentary system or a republican system, the popular vote does not confer absolute autocratic power on the elected official - the elected official is understood to be subject to other checks and balances in the system, including boards of review, ombudsmen, etc.
Interesting that the reporter asked him a question apparently in connectin with the "gay and lesbian" event the mayor had just attened.
What was the question the reporter asked? They're not saying, because then the reporter would be jailed for "hatespeech".
I agree that jailing or fining people for "hatespeech" is more than a bad idea. It's the end of free speech as we know it. But, OTOH, anything they want to to do the vile mayor is okay by me. Public and elected officials are accountable for their actions and speech in ways that us hoi polloi are not.
London Mayor Suspended Over Nazi Remark
By ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Writer
3 hours ago
LONDON - London Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from office for four weeks on Friday for bringing his office into disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
"His treatment of the journalist was unnecessarily insensitive and offensive," said David Laverick, chairman of the Adjudication Panel for England, the disciplinary panel which ruled on the case.
The suspension is effective March 1. Livingstone has the right to appeal the ruling.
"This decision strikes at the heart of democracy," the mayor said. "Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law."
Since Livingstone lost the case, he must pay his own costs, estimated at more than $175,000. The panel made no recommendation whether his salary should be suspended.
Laverick said the panel was concerned that Livingstone refused to apologize.
"The mayor does seem to have failed, from the outset of this case, to have appreciated that his conduct was unacceptable, was a breach of the code (the Greater London Authority code of conduct) and did damage to the reputation of his office," Laverick said.
"His representative is quite right in saying, as he did on Feb. 23, that matters should not have got as far as this but it is the mayor who must take responsibility for this."
Livingstone did not attend Friday's session to hear the ruling.
The mayor had told the panel that he had not meant to offend the Jewish community when he asked Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold whether he had been a "German war criminal."
Finegold, who had approached the mayor for comment after a reception for the gay and lesbian community in February, replied that he was Jewish.
Livingstone told the reporter he was "just like a concentration camp guard. You're just doing it because you're paid to, aren't you?" He referred to Finegold's employer as "a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots."
That was a reference to Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Evening Standard, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.
"The whole point being made was a dislike for Associated Newspapers and their history of supporting policies, which are inconsistent with the policies of the mayor," the mayor's lawyer, Tony Child, argued earlier this week.
"There's a right to be offensive and to express in hyperbolic terms opposition to Associated Newspapers and their policies," Child added.
Livingstone has also pointed to the pro-Nazi line taken by the Mail papers in the 1930s. Despite his loathing for the publisher, however, Livingstone once was employed as a restaurant critic for the Evening Standard.
"This paper has not always seen eye to eye with Mr. Livingstone but we have applauded his work in helping to unite London after 7/7," said Evening Standard editor Veronica Wadley, referring to the July 7 terrorist bombings.
"We believe, though, that it is only right that the adjudication panel has now decided that Mr. Livingstone acted in a manner that was ill-fitting for the mayor."
"It should never have reached this point when a simple apology could have avoided all the pain caused to so many Jewish Londoners who have been affected by the Holocaust," said Adrian Cohen, chairman of the London Jewish Forum.
A stubborn streak and a knack for provocation had served Livingstone well in his political career and he is known as "Red Ken" because of his left-wing policies.
On the Net:
I don't think my argument requires that election give absolute power to have it's strength (such as it is). If it's against the law to say silly-ass things, then the mayor has broken the law and should pay the legal penalty. Buit a law against saying silly-ass (and offensive) things seems to me to be fodder for the political correctnbess crowd - and the distance between my controlling your speech for your own good and my controlling your speech for MY own good is perilously small.
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I'd rather they allow him to continue with his oral diarrhea. The best way to fight such foolishness is not to stifle him and call him a fool, but to let him speak and prove himself one.
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