Stupid mayor, stupid punishment

Red Ken's "concentration camp" remark is exactly the kind of classless, offensive behavior we've expect from the man. (Harry's Place, in particular, has done a great job chronicling the London mayor's support - sometimes taxpayer-supported - for Islamic extremists.) But his suspension from office for making the remark is not only grossly disproportionate to the offence, it's downright undemocratic:

London Mayor Ken Livingstone has been found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

Mr Livingstone was suspended from duty for four weeks from March 1 after being found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute.

The three-man Adjudication Panel for England unanimously ruled that Mr Livingstone had been "unnecessarily insensitive and offensive" to Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold in February last year.

David Laverick, chairman of the disciplinary panel sitting in central London, said: "His treatment of the journalist was unnecessarily insensitive and offensive. He persisted with a line of comment likening the journalist's job to a concentration camp guard, despite being told that the journalist was Jewish and found it offensive to be asked if he was a German war criminal."

Today it's Ken Livingstone. Tomorrow it could be a British politician on our side of the fence. Either way, it's politically-correct nannyism at its worst.

Posted by damian at February 24, 2006 04:15 PM | TrackBack