Ken Livingstone is "far from perfect" but "we can work with him" (updated at 07:30)

Ken Livingstone is "far from perfect" but "we can work with him" these are the words reported by The Standard yesterday as being said by the Green Party's candidate for London Mayor, Jenny Jones.

In fact she has said more than that. In 2011 she ended a piece for her campaign website with this:

'I respect and admire Ken. It has been a privilege to have the opportunity to watch him work. If he returns as Mayor, I hope he will confirm his place in the world as a visionary leader as well as a brilliant player of the game of politics.'

"Not perfect"? "Not perfect"? An interesting choice of words used to describe a man who has embraced a homophobic, supporter of Islamic terrorism - Yusuf al-Qaradawi - and subsequently refused to apologise for this.





"respect and admire"? An odd choice of words to describe a man who stated Jews will not vote Labour because they are rich. "Ken toward the end of the meeting stated that he did not expect the Jewish community to vote Labour as votes for the left are inversely proportional to wealth levels, and suggested that as the Jewish community is rich we simply wouldn't vote for him."

"Not perfect"? An odd choice of words to describe a man who was himself described as "using the words Zionist, Jewish and Israeli interchangeably and did so "in a pejorative manner".

"respect and admire"? An odd choice of words to describe a man who declared that "These rich bastards just don't get it … no one should be allowed to vote in a British election, let alone sit in parliament, unless they pay their full share of tax.
"Cameron's problem is too many of his team have become super rich by exploiting every tax fiddle … [We should] sweep away tax scams and everybody should pay tax at the same rate on earnings and other income."
But himself avoided tax.

"Not perfect"? An odd choice of words to describe a man who declared "Hang a banker a week until the others improve." and that the Conservative party had been "riddled" with gay people.

"Not perfect"? An odd choice of words to describe someone who talks tough on the evils of the press but Andrew Gilligan reports thus:

'Tracey: Talking about boot-licking News International, do you know there have been 26 bylined articles in NI newspapers since the hacking scandal broke in July 2009? The byline, Mr Mayor, is Ken Livingstone.'

"respect and admire"? An odd choice of words to describe an unapologetic socialist who praises Hugo Chavez:


"Not perfect"? An odd choice of words to describe someone who campaigned against the official Labour candidate in Tower Hamlets chosing to support Lutfur Rahman instead.

"respect and admire"? An odd choice of words to describe someone who was paid money to front a programme on the now banned from the UK Press TV :

'Mr Livingstone first appeared on Press TV in March 2009, standing in for former Respect MP George Galloway. Previous presenters on the channel have been paid about £500 per show. Books reviewed on his Epilogue programme include “Zionist Israel And Apartheid South Africa,” “The Invention Of The Jewish People,” and “Israel And The Clash Of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran And The Plan To Remake The Middle East.”'

Ken Livingstone hopes to benefit from the large Muslim vote in London and is courting it with his choice of allies and words. Let's hope that decent people of London of whatever religion, or none, stand up for the rights of the followers of religions other than Islam as well as homosexuals, etc. In fact for all those people the man Ken Livingstone called moderate wishes harm to.

Ken Livingstone is an unredeemed socialist, a former associate of some of the murderers in the IRA, as well as a recent inviter and defender of an Islamist extremist to speak in London. Let's make sure Ken Livingstone never gets his hands on any of the levers of power by being re-elected to bring more shame on this great city.

“Islam is not compatible with democracy.” He also says that a husband has the right to administer “some type of physical force… a very light beating” to his wife, to prevent her from committing “evil.”

Andrew Gilligan in The Telegraph has a fascinating piece about the latest happenings in Tower Hamlets where Lutfur Rahman was elected mayor in a bad tempered and dirty campaign, amongst Lutfur Rahman's supporters was Ken Livingstone, despite Lutfur Rahman not being the Labour candidate.

Here's the context of the remarks in this piece's title:

'Two weeks after the extremist-backed politician, Lutfur Rahman, became mayor of Tower Hamlets, his council has placed CDs of sermons by an extremist Islamic preacher in its Town Hall.
The preacher, Abdur Raheem Green, has stated that “Islam is not compatible with democracy.” He also says that a husband has the right to administer “some type of physical force… a very light beating” to his wife, to prevent her from committing “evil.” There is, of course, a considerable irony here. You may remember that Lutfur won the mayoralty with the help of smear literature falsely claiming that his Labour opponent was… a wife-beater.
The CDs are being handed out to council workers and visitors as part of an official council-sanctioned display mounted in the Town Hall reception area from last week by an organisation called One Reason. Two councillors have been given them and have passed them to me.'

Fascinating stuff...

Ken Livingstone and Lutfur Rahman

Andrew Gilligan in The Telegraph reports on Andrew Neil's putting of Ken Livingstone on the spot, here's a brief extract:

'“Andrew Neil: Why should Labour people go out and campaign for you when you campaigned for Labour’s opponent in the Tower Hamlets mayoral election?

Ken: No, no, I made it quite clear, I called for a vote for the Labour candidate. But this is one of these Alternative Vote things. What I said was, you must use your second vote for the person that the local Labour people selected.

Neil (laughing): You said the Labour candidate wasn’t credible or competent. That’s hardly campaigning for him! You said people should vote for a candidate that isn’t credible or competent?

...

Ken: I would have been quite happy to go down with the local Labour candidate, but he didn’t want me around, because he’s been one of my opponents for a long time.

Neil: You were attacking Phil Woolas, though, for smears and so on. But here are you, backing a man who distributed 90,000 copies of a Bangladeshi freesheet which carried smears [on] the Labour candidate, the man you’re supposed to be supporting, calling him “the wife-beating candidate” and a racist!

Ken (smiling): It’s very dirty politics down in Tower Hamlets. No-one denies that.

Neil: Much worse than anything Phil Woolas said. And you’re backing this guy!

Ken: I mean, I don’t believe Lutfur Rahman put that [out]. A lot of dirty stuff was circulated, always has been, and one of the reasons I wanted a directly-elected mayor in Tower Hamlets is so you move away from that very sectional politics to someone who has to appeal very widely. And Lutfur Rahman’s been subject to a long smear campaign by Andrew Gilligan. Well, that immediately suggests that he can’t be all bad.”'

 Andre Gilligan comments:

'The fact that Lutfur is opposed by me appears to have become the main argument used by his supporters – see also here and, even more comically, here. Given the actual charge-sheet against Lutfur, I think you’ll need to do better than that, lads.'

If as seems clear Ken Livingstone campaigned against the labour candidate in Tower Hamlets, whey is he still in the Labour party contrary to party rules? Is Ken bigger than the party? He's certainly better known than Ed Miliband. Is it in fact possible that if Ed Milibnad was run over by that pesky theoretical bus that the leadership battle of a more left-wing Labour party could include uncuddly Ken?