Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Red Ken confounds predictions - refuses to apologise

The Mayor of London (not, incidentally, the 'Lord Mayor', as some N American papers are calling him -- the LM is someone else entirely), known as 'Red Ken' Livingstone, called a Press Conference today and, contrary to predictions, including those of his Jewish Deputy, Nicky Gavron, refused to apologise for calling a Jewish reporter 'a concentration camp guard'.
Ken Livingstone is a throwback to the 1970's, New Left, Marxist-Maoist student and 'world cause' activists. But a better clue to his obtuse behaviour may be in an article in the current Spectator - a UK political-literary-cultural weekly of somewhat erratic record on Jewish issues - which points out that the Jewish vote in the UK is now totally dwarfed in size and concentration by the Moslem vote. The author, Ron Liddle, suggests that the Government has done its sums, and, as the sidebar says, "is preparted to alienate Jewish voters in order to win Moslem support". Ken may be betting that he will pick up many, many votes simply by showing that he refuses to apologise for offending Jews. This article in the Observer (Sunday version of the Guardian) also analyses his thinking and his embrace of extremist Islamic leaders. Is this a pattern that will eventually be repeated all over the western world - including N America??

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