Summary
AT A party on Tuesday night which the Mayor, Ken Livingstone, held at City Hall to celebrate the anniversary of the former arts minister Chris Smith's public declaration that he was homosexual, the Mayor compared this paper's reporter, Oliver Finegold, to a "German war criminal". It was a particularly unfortunate remark, given that Mr Finegold is Jewish. Later, Mr Livingstone's press spokesman explained that our reporter had been harassing guests at the party because of their sexual orientation and had sworn at the Mayor. This is untrue and it is unfortunate that Mr Livingstone should express his sentiments in such an intemperate way. It may be worth clarifying some relevant facts. We have made clear our support for homosexuals' rights and to the proposals for civic partnerships between homosexual couples. Chris Smith, in fact, was a guest of honour at the Evening Standard British film awards this week. As for Mr Livingstone himself, we did indeed report on his questionable behaviour at a party in 2002, and he took exception to this.
However, since then we have applauded his enthusiasm for bringing the Olympic Games to London and other imaginative initiatives. If we had reservations about important aspects of the congestion charge - his most significant policy - we have also acknowledged its undoubted success in reducing traffic.See the full content of this document
Extract
Mayor Ken and the Standard
We sympathised with the Mayor's diffic...
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