Forums › Life › Politics, Media & Current Events › Ken Livingstone: Was his suspension right or wrong?
Londoners voted for a mayor they knew to be outspoken. They don’t need a faceless quango to protect them
Jackie Ashley
Monday February 27, 2006
The Guardian
No one could say that Ken Livingstone is naturally discreet or prone to grey understatement. I have a vivid memory of interviewing him on a London bus for this paper. As we were careering round a corner, he announced loudly to the crowded interior: “I just long for the day I wake up and find that the Saudi royal family are swinging from lamp posts and they’ve got a proper government that represents the people of Saudi Arabia.”
His loyal press officer blanched and made vague “Please don’t say this, boss” gestures but the London mayor was completely unabashed. His cheery enthusiasm for publicly hanging a key British ally in the Middle East produced predictable demands for his expulsion yet again from the Labour party, and his Tory opponent in the mayoral race, Steve Norris, accused him of incitement. Ken did not much care. After all, when it came to Tony Blair’s allies, he had already accused George Bush of being “the greatest threat to life on this planet”. So, go on, Ken, tell us what you really think.
It is very easy to attack Livingstone for going over the top, for expressing himself pugnaciously or indeed for a lifelong aversion to diplomatic language. Many people find his words odious. When, back in the 80s, he said that Britain’s treatment of the Irish over the past 800 years had been worse than Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, he did cause offence.
So his now notorious late-night exchange with a reporter from the London Evening Standard, who happened to be Jewish, was pretty unexceptional by Livingstone standards. His relations with the paper are dire and he accused its man of being “a German war criminal” and “behaving just like a concentration camp guard … doing it because you are paid to”. Then he described the reporter’s employer as “a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots”.
Robust, certainly: but does this really warrant his suspension as mayor of London for four weeks, from Wednesday? Who, you may want to know, has the power to suspend someone with a huge democratic mandate anyway?
The answer is that London was robbed of its elected leader by the adjudication panel for England which, according to its helpful website, was established under “part III, chapter IV of the Local Government Act 2000 to hear and adjudicate on matters concerning the conduct of local authority members” and “pursuant to section 59 (4) (d) … considers reference made to it by an ethical standards officer …” from the Standards Board for England. This is, in other words, another example of the spread of the unelected quango state, which grew under the Tories and has spread under New Labour.
The three people who sat in judgment on Livingstone may, for all I know, be thoroughly decent men. One has a background in Yorkshire local government, another has been a pensions ombudsman and the third is a former civil servant. They decided that Livingstone’s remarks to the journalist were “unnecessarily insensitive and offensive” and would damage the reputation of his office. It was, obviously, not Ken’s reputation that concerned them but that of the job he was doing.
All of which is a mixture of the blindingly obvious and the thoroughly irrelevant. Many people will be offended by what he said. Many people are offended by what lots of politicians say. He may have been “unnecessarily offensive” to a journalist; but what would the right and necessary amount of offensiveness have been? Some will feel the dignity of mayoral office has been compromised. Others will laugh. The point is: what do we feel about an anonymous, unknown little clique of unelected bureaucrats removing from power for a month (and their powers are far wider) a man who has twice been elected by Londoners?
It is worth rehearsing the numbers. He has won the job, fair and square, twice in succession, first as an independent candidate and then as Labour’s candidate. On the latter occasion, despite all the controversies of his first term (or perhaps because of them) he received 685,541 first-preference votes and, taking into account the secondpreference votes, 828,300 in total. He is hardly an unknown figure. His highs and lows have been widely publicised. Yet three people can set aside the votes of more than 800,000 because they feel he has caused “unnecessary offence”.
This is surreal. It is undemocratic. Perhaps we should report the adjudication panel to the ethical standards officer, and get him to make them adjudicate on their own behaviour in compromising the dignity of British democracy. Could they suspend themselves? Could it be for longer than a month?
The affair is not, however, just darkly funny. It raises tougher questions still. You may or may not agree with Ken’s views on the Middle East, but to move from his hostility to the actions of the state of Israel to suggest that he behaved in an anti-semitic way is gross. He has made clear, on these pages and elsewhere, the distinction between his loathing of the Holocaust and his admiration for the Jewish people, on the one hand, and his anger about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, on the other. He has worked with the Board of Deputies of British Jews against the National Front. His hatred of the Mail group is connected to its pre-war admiration for the Nazis. He has to be allowed his strong views.
The final point is wider. All around we hear complaints about a lack of interest in politics, a disillusion with politicians who all sound the same. Where are the interesting, strong voices, people ask. The new Power report opens with a heartfelt cry from Helena Kennedy who speaks of “thousands of people around the country who feel quietly angry or depressed. When it comes to politics they feel they are eating stones … The politicos have no idea of the extent of the alienation that is out there.”
This alienation has many causes. But the intervention of unelected officials and bureaucratic quangos at so many levels of life certainly has something to do with it. There is a great grey web of boards, offices, committees and commissions weighing down on public life; Livingstone has fallen foul of one.
If we are to have a revival of interest in democratic politics, it does need outspoken, strong and occasionally reckless views – the things said in the street and the pub – argued about openly and honestly. Ken is popular partly because he has taken bold decisions, notably over congestion charging, but also because he speaks out. Ken is Ken. That’s why London chose him. And honestly, dear section 59 (4) (d), we are big enough to live with the consequences.
ISTR the incident being as such..
1. Ken Livingstone attended some sort of lesbian/gay media event
2. A reporter and photographer from AP were aggressively trying to photograph and interview those present.
3. Ken Livingstone then challenged the reporter, made several true statements about the political history of Associated Press (it is very well known that they supported Hitler in the initial stages of WW II), and quite correctly pointed out that a young man from an ethnic minority who was engaged in intimidating those of another minority group was indeed as bad as the various people who carry out atrocities in war because they are paid to do so.
TBH I think he was fairly mild TBH – I would have gone further and said that the reporter and photographer clearly enjoy the feeling of power an domination their job gives them.
He had no reason to apologise, particularly as it is pretty obvious Ken Livingstone is far from racist!
IMO nothing other than a crime of serious violence or dishonesty should be able to get an elected politican suspended from office, otherwise it is extremely dangerous for democracy.
another nail in the coffin of democracy.
FUCK ENGLAND.
Ta-ta, Ken . and take your overcoat with you
Martin Samuel
Why pour scorn on the Standards Board? Public officials who behave offensively should be called to account
SO SUPPOSE he had stuck one on him? Suppose, when Ken Livingstone stepped into the night last February to be confronted by an irritating presence from the London Evening Standard, the Mayor had attempted not a bleary battle of wits but two falls, a knockout or a submission? How far could he go before those now championing his rights as a democratically elected official against the Adjudication Panel for England switched horses to chorus that Something Must Be Done?
There is nothing the press hates more than unaccountable individuals playing judge and jury with public life. After all, that.s our job. Take Tessa Jowell. We all know the appropriate place to decide whether her position as Culture Secretary is compromised by her husband.s mortgage arrangements; you.re looking at it. The Standards Board for England? How dare they? Don.t these people know that the proper way to get rid of a senior political figure without using the ballot box is a sustained campaign of editorial, commentary and rolling news? Good grief, carry on like this and we.ll all be out of a job. You can.t have any old Tom, Dick or David Laverick applying the checks and balances. If Livingstone is to spend more time with his newts, there are proper channels and many of them throw in Su Doku and a rundown of what is on the telly tonight, and all for 60p.
Livingstone is getting an incredibly easy ride from those that traditionally despise him, because he has fallen foul of a quango; and if there is one thing we hate more than erring politicians it is quangos. The quango is seen as symptomatic of everything that is venal in British politics: jobs for the boys, the old pals act, the licence to print money. In some cases, the critics are right.
The Adjudication Council for England, which has suspended Livingstone for behaving in an offensive manner, is therefore presumed to be redundant and wrong. Except, in this case, it isn.t either. If Livingstone were a Member of Parliament his peers could censure him. To be fair, if he were making cheese sandwiches in the works canteen, the duty manager could have a quiet word. As he is the Mayor of London, there is absolutely nothing that can be done about excesses that do not break the law of the land, beyond referral to the Standards Board for England. It is their job to prevent local government officials from acting the goat, and if they do not stop them, who will?
The presumption is that it is wrong for officials who are not elected to have responsibility over those who are. Yet without them, no disciplinary procedure would exist. There are many ways a person can behave that, while not illegal, would suggest unsuitability for office. Neither David Blunkett nor Peter Mandelson broke the law. In the absence of process, a standards board is the good sheriff. Without it, local government is Dodgepot City.
Livingstone.s supporters claim that by suspending him for a month a faceless quango has overruled a mandate from the people of London. Depends what is meant by mandate. Taking into account the total of first and second preferences, there were 73 per cent of people that did not vote for him at all in 2004. Seems a little reckless, then, to endorse a system in which having attracted just over one quarter of the capital.s support, the mayor is then left to behave in what ever manner he sees fit as long as it doesn.t end at the Old Bailey.
How are we to have elected watchdogs, anyway? David Laverick, the head of the quango that did for Livingstone, is sent up as power-mad, puffed up with self-importance or desperate for five minutes of fame. We should be very glad, though, that when the Mayor of London falls out of his latest jolly-up and starts falsely berating a journalist for asking a perfectly reasonable question, there is somebody with the official remit to utter the Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation equivalent of: you.re nicked, my old beauty.
For the record, Livingstone was not exiting the Nags Head after a swift half with the lads. He was leaving City Hall having hosted a publicly financed event . £4,000 from the mayoral fund . to commemorate 20 years since Chris Smith became the first MP to declare publicly his homosexuality. Livingstone and Smith are good friends. Many, in such circumstances, would have bought a mate a drink. Most, though, would have used their own money. Maybe Ken did that another time. But on February 8, 2005, guests were responding to an invitation on Greater London Authority headed paper and Ken was in the chair with public cash. In such circumstances, the Standard man was perfectly entitled to inquire if he had had a nice time.
Livingstone.s reaction, in which he compared a journalist whom he by then knew to be Jewish to a concentration camp guard, is exactly the sort of thing with which any standards board worth its title should be concerned.
Livingstone claimed that because he was departing the building, and wearing an overcoat, he was not on duty as London Mayor. Interestingly, pictures of Heinrich Himmler taken around 1943 show that he also liked to wrap up warm. No doubt a keen student of German history like Ken would agree politics are not something that can be taken off the peg. So, deep down, he must feel very glad the board considered his overcoat to be standards-proof.
Ken now says goodbye until April. If he gets bored, he could always pop in on the London Cultural Consortium, a 17-strong committee reporting directly to the mayor. No doubt its chairman, Chris Smith, will agree what a waste of time these tin-pot commissions are. They could even split the .up to £5,000. Smith declares each year to write for the Evening Standard. You could have a good knees-up with that.
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Forums › Life › Politics, Media & Current Events › Ken Livingstone: Was his suspension right or wrong?
