“This decision strikes at the heart of democracy… Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law.”

— London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone, condemning his upcoming four-week suspension from office for suggesting that a Jewish journalist was like a concentration camp guard. Mayor Livingstone will appeal his suspension, which is scheduled to begin on Wednesday.  

Nobody, it seems, is particularly pleased with the ruling.  Major Livingstone is livid about the suspension ruling made by the Adjudication Panel for England, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews — the body that lodged the complaint and never asked for the suspension — stated that it found the incident, the guilty result, and the major’s subsequent suspension regrettable. Additionally, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, decried the suspension as a “clear over-reaction and an affront to our democratic traditions.”

The whole fuss stemmed from the fact that Major Livingstone, who made the comments to Oliver Finegold of the Evening Standard newspaper outside a party organized with public funds, refused to apologize for his comments. The mayor, for his part, refused to apologize, stating that the Evening Standard had supported the Nazis in the decade leading up to Word War II.

The conversation, which was recorded, captures Mayor Livingston asking Oliver Finegold if he is a “German war criminal,” to which Finegold replies: “No, I’m Jewish, I wasn’t a German war criminal. I’m quite offended by that.”

The Mayor responds to Finegold by stating: “Ah right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren’t you?”

Mimi Hanaoka