Livingstone: Olympic bid ‘stronger’ despite row
London Mayor Ken Livingstone today insisted the London 2012 Olympics bid had been strengthened over the past week despite the row over his allegedly anti-Semitic remarks to a newspaper reporter.
He said the bid team had been able to reassure the International Olympic Committee inspectors – in town for a four-day visit – on all the points they raised, and the bid was “in a stronger position” now than before the inspectors arrived.
Speaking at a press conference on the inspection’s progress to date, Mr Livingstone refused to answer questions about remarks he made to Evening Standard report Oliver Finegold – a Jew – comparing him to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
He had earlier said the remarks were aimed at the moral abdication of journalists who invaded people’s personal privacy on the grounds of following their editor’s orders, which he compared to concentration camp guards who “stood around” and let the Holocaust happen.
Today, the Mayor said he would issue a written statement on Tuesday just before his weekly press conference, having spent the weekend at home with his family to mull over the matter.
The IOC inspectors were not politicians but sportspeople, and were interested only in ensuring London had a good technical bid, he added.
He told reporters: “Most sportspeople . aren’t quite as interested in these issues [the row over his remarks] as you or I are.”
London 2012 bid communications manager Mike Lee added that the issue had “not been raised once” in the sessions he had attended so far, and that nothing would deflect the bid team from its mission.
Mr Livingstone said the work being done in preparation for hosting the Olympics was “quite remarkable” and the bid was being taken much more seriously than it would have been four years ago.
He added: “I do think we are ending in a stronger position than we began, and this is clearly going to be a [close] race right down to the end.”
