Ken You Believe It?

Mayor plants both feet in his mouth.

Two weeks ago, Mayor Ken Livingston had a heated argument with a reporter outside a party on his way home. Yesterday both sides continued to step up the offensive, with the Daily Mail calling Ken an 'enemy of democracy' and our Mayor dredging up the anti-Semitic record of the Evening Standard, and especially her parent paper, the Daily Mail. Both parties are behaving like spoilt children.

I've always had a weakness for Red Ken, ever since he was depicted by the Mary Whitehouse Experience as gun-slinging cowboy shot down by Mrs Thatcher. I like the fact that he openly detests cars and posh West Londoners. The transparent craving for power which he shares with his fellow politicians is tempered by a grain of socialist principle which is completely lacking in most of New Labour.

That said, Ken's tirade against Oliver Finegold was inexcusable. First he accused him of being a Nazi, then when the journalist objected to this remark on the grounds that he was Jewish, Ken countered by comparing him to a concentration camp collaborator, one of those unfortunate Jewish prisoners who supervised the extermination of their fellow inmates.

You can almost hear the scrape of the shovel as Ken dug himself deeper and deeper into trouble. He was clearly irritated to find himself confronted by a journalist outside the party, but he would not have been so obstinately determined to win the argument had he not consumed several drinks.

For Ken to pretend that his refusal to apologise is a matter of principal is ridiculous. He would have done so already if the parties asking him to say sorry did not include the Daily Mail and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Mail (which, lest we forget, was not Finegold's paper) is equally ridiculous, not to say deceitful in trying to deny their anti-Semitic record and long history of intolerance.

Most people have got drunk at a party and put our foot in it. I'm sure many of us, myself included, have carried arguments to ridiculous lengths in order to save face after a few glasses. The difference between you and I and the typical politician or journalist is this: We wake up in the morning with a stinging hangover and a dreadful feeling that we’ve done something wrong. These guys arise the next day surrounded by yes-men and convinced that their self-important drunken ramblings were pearls of wisdom born out of deep seated conviction. Come on people, you’re making a spectacle of yourselves!

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