Livingstone still faces disqualification from office

[untethered]

Larry, what honestly is the point of discussing freedom of speech and democracy with people such as yourself that plainly don't believe in them?

Ken and the Standard should be permitted to say whatever they please. If people don't like what Ken says, they can decline to vote for him in future. If they don't like what the Standard writes - or even the associations they had before World War Two, they can decline to buy it.

Ken may be an anti-Semite. The Standard may be a scurrilous reactionary rag. But surely the beauty of freedom of speech is that people have sufficient rope to hang themselves and we can enjoy the freedom to criticise those people in public without losing our jobs or indeed our liberty over it?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could deal with a hysterical and undemocratic attack on our democratically-elected mayor, an attack which is taking place because he is unpopular with the Right, without the terms of the debate being set by spouting sectarians?

I'm no fan of Larry's particular brand of invective, but it's perfectly reasonable to oppose these moves against Livingstone without thinking very much of "Red" Ken. Livingstone remember is the same Mayor who called on transport workers to scab, he's the same Mayor who went crawling back to New Labour and he's the same man who wrote gushing tributes to Gerry Healy. Is it "sectarian" to refuse to whitewash his record just because he is under attack from more malevolent sources?

As for him being the best candidate for the job, as somebody argued earlier, I'd much rather that the IWCA or Respect candidates had won. I'd even have preferred the Green.

 

[nino_savatte]

I'm no fan of Larry's particular brand of invective, but it's perfectly reasonable to oppose these moves against Livingstone without thinking very much of "Red" Ken. Livingstone remember is the same Mayor who called on transport workers to scab, he's the same Mayor who went crawling back to New Labour and he's the same man who wrote gushing tributes to Gerry Healy. Is it "sectarian" to refuse to whitewash his record just because he is under attack from more malevolent sources?

As for him being the best candidate for the job, as somebody argued earlier, I'd much rather that the IWCA or Respect candidates had won. I'd even have preferred the Green.

Sure, I'm no fan of Livingstone and my opinion of him has plummeted since he rejoined NuLabour but the fact remains that Northcliffe House has been operating a smear campaign to have him unseated from office (and have him presumably replaced by Shagger Norris) for quite some time.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

he's the same man who wrote gushing tributes to Gerry Healy.

Yes, I can imagine that must be on the minds of many Londoners much of the time.

Is it "sectarian" to refuse to whitewash his record just because he is under attack from more malevolent sources?

No, it's sectarian to take the view that it's almost as important to lay into him as it is to support him against the Vile. Have a bleedin' sense of perspective.

 

[Wilf]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could deal with a hysterical and undemocratic attack on our democratically-elected mayor, an attack which is taking place because he is unpopular with the Right, without the terms of the debate being set by spouting sectarians?

I ain't getting involved in the main issue here ('cept to say I dislike both Livingstone and the Standard). However, I'm interested why you think Livingstone is unpopular with the right. Would have thought his politics as Mayor would have endeared him to them - pro-business, anti-demonstrator, pro-Olympics etc. [genuine question by the way]

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Well, he's clearly not popular with them, which tends to answer the question by default. But possibly it's because they don't think of him as somebody they can trust to do what they want.

 

[JoePolitix]

I ain't getting involved in the main issue here ('cept to say I dislike both Livingstone and the Standard). However, I'm interested why you think Livingstone is unpopular with the right.

Hear's one reason. One of the Conservative group in the Greater London Authority's press release last year entitled “Livingstone to waste £400,000 of taxpayers money!”:

“Ken Livingstone is set to spend an amazing £400,000 of taxpayers’ money to fund a conference of the European Social Forum. The social forum movement exists, in its own words, to ‘struggle against the inequitable and undemocratic processes and outcomes of capitalist society: privatisation, corporate power, war, global debt and poverty, environmental destruction, racism, sexism, homophobia, the erosion of civil liberties, asylum law, prison slavery, animal exploitation’ - the list is endless!

“The mayor is proposing to take £239,000 from GLA budgets and add it to £150,000 he agreed to spend on the event back in May. The conference will be held at Alexandra Palace and this is the event the mayor has invited Dr al-Qaradawi back to in October.

“This proposal is an absolute disgrace and a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. This conference is nothing more than a get-together of leftwing pressure groups. Londoners are already struggling to pay their GLA precept because the mayor doubled it in his first four-year term - it looks like he is set to double it again in his next four years!”

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Yes, I can imagine that must be on the minds of many Londoners much of the time.

It fucking should be. Anyone who has read his foreword to "Gerry Healy: A revolutionary life" will be aware that the man is an utter fruitcake.

No, it's sectarian to take the view that it's almost as important to lay into him as it is to support him against the Vile. Have a bleedin' sense of perspective.

Livingstone is one of the most prominent capitalist politicians in Britain, the single most prominent elected representative in London. His record matters, even when he's under attack from the Evening Standard. He's not on our side, he's not the best man available, he's just another New Labour politician. As such, I'm against him being witchhunted by forces to his right, but I'm not going to forgive him his record because of it. I think perhaps that your own sense of perspective is lacking here - the Standard attacks him, so that means we have to shut up about anything he does wrong.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

He's not on our side, he's not the best man available, he's just another New Labour politician.

The inability of far-leftists to tell the difference between different things is a substantial reason why people don't listen to them too carefully.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The inability of far-leftists to tell the difference between different things is a substantial reason why people don't listen to them too carefully.

Sadly I'm all too capable of "telling the difference between different things". Livingstone is a careerist who trades off a reputation as a "leftist" earned many years ago. His most recent contribution to national politics has been to act as a shepherd, guiding doubters back into the Labour Party fold. He was once a soft leftist, now his actual politics are in substance no different from those of Brown or any other Blairite. Just as your own sense of perspective seems to be somewhat lacking, your critical faculties seem to have seized up on this one.

 

[Wilf]

To JP - yes, but thats party political - and predictable - opposition. My point is that he doesn't even show too many remnants of the GLC period in his attitude towards the running of London. Overall he seems to have a 'whats good for business is good for London model'

 

[Pickman's model]

Thing is, Livingstone had a point and Finegold conveniently ignored historical fact in order to pursue a vendetta.

oh for FUCK'S sake. what a load of old wank. it speaks volumes that NOWHERE in your post do you elaborate on this fictitious vendetta. - where's the proof that finegold's anything more than some dogsbody journo who drew the short straw and was unlucky enough to be covering the reception? from the sounds of it, you've not noticed that finegold seems always to be covering the stories no one else would want to.

 

[Pickman's model]

Ever hear of the capos at the camps? Livingstone had a point. Any self-respecting Jewish journalist wouldn't be working for a paper with such a vile history.

so it's all finegold's fault? he's stupid enough to work for the standard so he deserves drunken fuckwittery from livingstone? if there's any logick in yr position, please reveal it.

incidentally, could you produce some evidence that capos were concentration camp guards?

 

[editor]

- where's the proof that finegold's anything more than some dogsbody journo who drew the short straw and was unlucky enough to be covering the reception?

Actually he rang up Livingstone's office and ASKED to be invited and when he was told, "bog off, it's a private function" he ELECTED to wait outside and then hassle Ken as he left.

 

[nino_savatte]

oh for FUCK'S sake. what a load of old wank. it speaks volumes that NOWHERE in your post do you elaborate on this fictitious vendetta. - where's the proof that finegold's anything more than some dogsbody journo who drew the short straw and was unlucky enough to be covering the reception? from the sounds of it, you've not noticed that finegold seems always to be covering the stories no one else would want to.

Sorry Pickmans, but you appear to conveniently ignore the long running smear campaign in the Rothermere press. We know how you feel about Livingstone but that isn't the issue - is it?

 

[nino_savatte]

so it's all finegold's fault? he's stupid enough to work for the standard so he deserves drunken fuckwittery from livingstone? if there's any logick in yr position, please reveal it.

incidentally, could you produce some evidence that capos were concentration camp guards?

"Logick"? I don't do Crowleyisms, I do "logic".

 

[Pickman's model]

Larry, what honestly is the point of discussing freedom of speech and democracy with people such as yourself that plainly don't believe in them?

Ken and the Standard should be permitted to say whatever they please. If people don't like what Ken says, they can decline to vote for him in future. If they don't like what the Standard writes - or even the associations they had before World War Two, they can decline to buy it.

Ken may be an anti-Semite. The Standard may be a scurrilous reactionary rag. But surely the beauty of freedom of speech is that people have sufficient rope to hang themselves and we can enjoy the freedom to criticise those people in public without losing our jobs or indeed our liberty over it?

the problem you appear to face is that it isn't the standard which is trying ken livingstone but the standards people - a separate organisation entirely, though i do understand how you've conflated the two.

 

[Pickman's model]

"Logick"? I don't do Crowleyisms, I do "logic".

sadly you seem to know as much about logick as you do about the english language. which is to say, little.

 

[Pickman's model]

Sorry Pickmans, but you appear to conveniently ignore the long running smear campaign in the Rothermere press. We know how you feel about Livingstone but that isn't the issue - is it?

what, the long-running smear campaign in the paper which backed his election campaigns in 2000 and 2004? some smear!

if nick griffin made an offensive remark to a journalist, i suspect you'd be baying for fascist blood. but as it's livingstone, any normal standards you hold seem to go out the window and the reporter was gagging for it. what a perverse set of opinions you hold.

 

[nino_savatte]

sadly you seem to know as much about logick as you do about the english language. which is to say, little.

That's rich coming from one who deliberately spells certain words in the manner of The Great Beast. I will take no lessons from you on the English language - thank you.

 

[editor]

sadly you seem to know as much about logick as you do about the english language. which is to say, little.

Oh dear. See how your childish insistence on adding superfluous 'ck' endings just disrupts and derails the debate?

 

[Pickman's model]

That's rich coming from one who deliberately spells certain words in the manner of The Great Beast. I will take no lessons from you on the English language - thank you.

crowley only suffix'd one word - magick - in the same fashion as that employ'd and described by one dr s johnson, in his dictionary.

that you appear ignorant of the great dr is no surprise - you seem to flaunt yr ignorance as if to impress us.

 

[Pickman's model]

Oh dear. See how your childish insistence on adding superfluous 'ck' endings just disrupts and derails the debate?

no, see how one fuckwit has derail'd the debate as he can't answer my substantive points.

 

[nino_savatte]

crowley only suffix'd one word - magick - in the same fashion as that employ'd and described by one dr s johnson, in his dictionary.

that you appear ignorant of the great dr is no surprise - you seem to flaunt yr ignorance as if to impress us.

You're such a pedant. "ignorant of the great dr"? Do me a favour gooner-boy.

You don't half talk a lot of shite btw, your last paragraph being a classic example.

 

[Pickman's model]

Actually he rang up Livingstone's office and ASKED to be invited and when he was told, "bog off, it's a private function" he ELECTED to wait outside and then hassle Ken as he left.

to ask him a question - and a fair enough question, for a journalist - as he left's now a fucking vendetta?

i think he had a bit of a cheek to ask to be invited, but i don't feel you can have a go at him for conducting his business in a publick space.

 

[nino_savatte]

no, see how one fuckwit has derail'd the debate as he can't answer my substantive points.

No, you derailed the thread...and "substantive points"? Fuck me, you're in a world of your own. It must get bloody lonely there.

 

[Pickman's model]

You're such a pedant. "ignorant of the great dr"? Do me a favour gooner-boy.

You don't half talk a lot of shite btw, your last paragraph being a classic example.

yr a mendacious little fucker. and nothing anyone can say will change that.

 

[Pickman's model]

No, you derailed the thread...and "substantive points"? Fuck me, you're in a world of your own. It must get bloody lonely there.

could you point to this derailment?

 

[nino_savatte]

yr a mendacious little fucker. and nothing anyone can say will change that.

Tut, tut, tut, the utter desperation. Is that the best you can do, Picky? I always thought you were something of a wit, but you're more of a shit these days.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

Sadly I'm all too capable of "telling the difference between different things". Livingstone is a careerist who trades off a reputation as a "leftist" earned many years ago. His most recent contribution to national politics has been to act as a shepherd, guiding doubters back into the Labour Party fold. He was once a soft leftist, now his actual politics are in substance no different from those of Brown or any other Blairite. Just as your own sense of perspective seems to be somewhat lacking, your critical faculties seem to have seized up on this one.

Oh come on! Livingstone was not just another 'soft leftist'. I saw him on Militant platforms defending the Editorial Board against expulsion. And didn't the newspaper of the Socialist Party say as recently as March 2000 that during the 1980s he defended 'radical socialist policies'? Of course he has fallen a very long way, but lets not rewrite history.

The Socialist Party supports Ken Livingstone’s stand but working-class people need a permanent alternative to New Labour, which lasts beyond the London Mayoral elections.

...
KEN LIVINGSTONE’S decision to stand for London Mayor could open a new chapter for the British labour movement. PETER TAAFFE, Socialist Party general secretary says its effects will be felt not just in London but nationally and even internationally.
...
VILE AND vicious personalised attacks on Livingstone were once the preserve of the Tories. Now they are the only weapon of New Labour.
...
Unfortunately, Ken Livingstone has also made soothing noises towards the capitalists.

In a recent speech to businessmen he repeated his pro-market stance first outlined in an infamous Evening Standard interview last year. He no longer stands for a democratically planned economy (that is socialism), but “accepts the market”.

He qualifies this by arguing that he doesn’t accept an “unrestricted market” but will defend already nationalised industries and oppose privatisation. This is a retreat on his programme in the 1980s. Then he earned the scorn of the press and the Labour leadership as “Red Ken”, and conversely the support of the majority of Londoners, because he advocated radical socialist policies.
...
The Socialist Party ...
will be calling for a vote for Ken Livingstone. We intend to mobilise in his favour.


http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/sparchive/index2.html?149.htm