Livingstone not budging on 'concentration camp' remark

Tuesday, 15 February 2005 11:31 AM

London Mayor Ken Livingstone has continued to deny that his remarks likening a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard were racist or offensive.

Speaking at a press conference today, he said he had been making similar remarks for over 20 years when confronted by reporters whose behaviour he felt had "overstepped the mark".

Last week, Mr Livingstone was questioned by Evening Standard report Oliver Finegold - who is Jewish - after a party marking 20 years since former Culture Secretary Chris Smith came out as being gay.

He said to Mr Finegold: "You are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?"

Mr Livingstone said he had been subjected to "relentless harassment" and intrusions into his and his family's private life by journalists - notably those from the Evening Standard's sister paper, the Daily Mail.

The journalists had often justified their intrusions by telling him, "I'm only doing this to pay my mortgage," or, "My editor told me to do this."

It was that attitude that had prompted his remarks, the Mayor said, because it was an abdication of moral responsibility: a journalist claiming he was "only following orders" was behaving in the same way that concentration camp guards had when they "stood around" and let the Holocaust happen.

He acknowledged the harassment he had suffered was nothing in comparison to the Holocaust, which he called "uniquely the most evil chapter in human history", and he had never tried to imply the two were similar in scope. But such behaviour was "the thin end of the wedge" that led to atrocities such as the Holocaust, he said.

Mr Livingstone added that if someone indicated they did not want to be interviewed, that did not give a reporter the right to "bark" questions at them over and over. Such behaviour could constitute harassment if carried out by an average member of the public, he noted.

Mr Livingstone said he would "love" to meet the Board of Deputies of British Jews and explain his remarks, but they had declined his offer.

He added he would make a full written response to the chair of the Greater London Assembly next week, once the International Olympic Committee inspection of London's 2012 bid was complete.

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