Ken Livingstone: a short history of controversial gaffes

LABOUR’S London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone is back in hot water for saying that the Conservative party is “riddled” with homosexuals and that Baroness Thatcher was “clinically insane” when she was prime minister. For long-term observers of ‘Red Ken’, this is fairly lightweight stuff...

The stairwell incident, July 2002

Two years after taking office as Mayor of London, Livingstone was accused of pushing a man down a 15ft stairwell during a row at a party. The incident is said to have been sparked when Robin Hedges tried to intervene in a row between Livingstone and his future wife Emma Beal.

Hedges, who underwent a brain scan having been knocked unconscious by his fall, gave a statement to the Evening Standard saying: “He [Livingstone] was going ballistic... The last memory I have is of Ken's arm lunging towards me.”

Livingstone denied the claim, saying that he did not see the fall but thought it might have happened when Hedges overbalanced as he tried to pass people on the crowded stairs. The injured man made no criminal complaint.

The Jewish reporter, February 2005

Door-stopped by Evening Standard journalist Oliver Finegold as he left a party, Livingstone offended the Jewish reporter by asking if he was a German war criminal.

Caught on tape, Finegold replied: "No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal. I'm quite offended by that."

The Mayor answered: "Ah right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?”

The comments led to Livingstone being suspended for four weeks on the grounds that he had brought his office into disrepute.

The Ratko Mladic reference, June 2011

Livingstone again compared someone to a war criminal. This time City Hall chief of staff Eddie Lister was described as the "Ratko Mladic of local government" during a public meeting at The Crooked Billet pub in Penge.

Mladic is the former Bosnian Serb military leader on trial in The Hague for allegedly overseeing the killing of 7,000 people during the Balkan conflict. Lister, on the other hand, is a senior member of current London mayor Boris Johnson’s administration, who caused annoyance with plans to make children pay to use an adventure playground in Wandsworth.

A spokesperson for Livingstone dismissed complaints, saying: "Ken's phrasing is always colourful”.

The ‘good and evil’ comment, August 2011

Livingstone said the upcoming mayoral election offered voters a “simple choice between good and evil” in which he represented Winston Churchill while Tory Boris Johnson was Adolf Hitler.

He followed this up with: “Those who don't vote for me will be weighed in the balance come Judgment Day. The Archangel Gabriel will say, ‘You didn't vote for Ken Livingstone in 2012. Oh dear, burn forever. Your skin flayed for all eternity’.”

This led to criticism from both Tory MPs and senior Labour frontbenchers who called on Labour leader Ed Miliband to choose a more credible candidate.

The people of London, however, seem not to have been too put off by the comparison. Latest opinion polls have Livingstone slightly ahead in the race to become mayor.

As for the Tory gays, Ken had a ready explanation this morning. It was, he said, “a backhanded compliment”. The Tories had shown “real progress” from a time when MPs were forced to resign if they were “exposed” as gay. ·