Livingstone: I will not apologise to the Daily Mail
London Mayor Ken Livingstone has said that he will not apologise to the Daily Mail over comments in which he likened an Evening Standard journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
His comments, made when he was door-stepped outside a party, had caused outrage in some parts of the Jewish community and have led the local government watchdog the Standards Board to open an investigation.
Speaking at city hall this morning, Mr Livingstone said that he had not meant to downplay the significance of the Holocaust and “my words were not intended to cause such offence”.
But, he said he would not be offering any apology to the Daily Mail group, which owns the Evening Standard, claiming it was an inherently racist newspaper.
Mr Livingstone said the Daily Mail was not qualified to level charges of anti-Semitism at anybody, because of their own anti-Semitic stance in the 1930s and 1940s.
And, he said that even if they no longer smear Jews, it is only because the paper has moved on to describe Muslims and asylum seekers in the same manner.
Mr Livingstone said the Evening Standard journalist concerned was responsible for his own actions and had invited the comment by pursuing the mayor in the street and thrusting a tape recorder at him, all of which constitute “unacceptable behaviour”.
He said his comment to the journalist was intended to highlight the implications of abdicating one’s responsibility for their own actions. At the extreme of this “moral wedge” were the crimes of Auschwitz, and Rwanda.
The Mayor added: “If there was so much concern about my comment then why did the Daily Mail editors and journalists not get in touch with me directly to say I have gone too far?”
Instead, the editor held the story back until Friday, when the headline branded his comment a racist slur.
Mr Livingstone said that he had received widespread public support since the row erupted and of the 500 letters received, 74 per cent had expressed total support for him.
