The Mayor of London has denounced government watchdogs who today punished him with a four-week suspension from office for comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
The Adjudication Panel for England found Ken Livingstone guilty of bringing his office into disrepute in a verbal clash with Oliver Finegold, a London Evening Standard reporter, outside City Hall in the capital last February.
David Laverick, chairman of the panel sitting in Central London, said he was "concerned" that Mr Livingstone had failed to realise the seriousness of his outburst, which the watchdog described as "unnecessarily insensitive".
Mr Livingstone, who has consistently refused to apologise for his comments despite pleas from the Jewish community, hit back by saying that the ruling: "strikes at the heart of democracy".
In a statement, he said: "Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law. Three members of a body that no one has ever elected should not be allowed to overturn the votes of millions of Londoners."
Mr Livingstone said that he had arranged to meet his lawyers next week when he will decide whether to officially challenge the verdict. Since Mr Livingstone lost the case he must pay his own costs - estimated at more than £80,000.
The incident occurred as Mr Livingstone was approached by Mr Finegold as he left a party marking 20 years since Chris Smith, the former Culture Secretary, became Britain’s first openly-gay MP.
Mr Livingstone objected to being questioned by Mr Finegold and asked the journalist whether he had ever been a "German war criminal". When Mr Finegold replied that he was Jewish, the Mayor likened him to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
After announcing its verdict this morning, the Central London tribunal heard submissions from both sides on the most appropriate punishment under the Greater London Authority’s code of conduct.
The maximum penalty available to it was to bar him from office, but the tribunal chose suspension - the second most severe sanction. They could also have chosen to censure him, or to order him to apologise or to undergo training.
Mr Laverick said that Mr Livingstone: "...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.
"The reasonable onlooker would regard Mr Livingstone’s reputation as being damaged as a result of the exchange. The case tribunal has also concluded that the remarks have also had the effect of damaging the reputation of his office of mayor."
He went on to say that disqualifying Mr Livingstone from his position would not be appropriate.
He said: "The Case Tribunal is however concerned that the Mayor does seem to have failed, from the outset of this case, to have appreciated that his conduct was unacceptable, was a breach of the code (the GLA code of conduct) and did damage to the reputation of his office.
"His representative is quite right in saying, as he did on February 23, that matters should not have got as far as this but it is the Mayor who must take responsibility for this. It was his comments that started the matter, and thereafter his position seems to have become ever more entrenched."
Nicky Gavron, the Deputy Mayor who will take over the reins during Mr Livingstone's four-week suspension from March 1, was originally selected to stand against him as Labour's official candidate in 2002.
Ms Gavron, whose Jewish mother fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, stood aside when Mr Livingstone was readmitted to the party in the run-up to the election in 2004.
Her first duty in her locum role was to release a statement in support of the man she had replaced: "This decision is absurd – and strikes at the roots of democracy," she said.
"This issue... has been blown out of all proportion."
The case was brought after an investigation by the local government watchdog, the Standard Board for England. Their costs total £45,000 - the greater part of this has been due to complex legal issues raised during the case. It is understood that the costs for the Adjudication Panel are approximately £7,000.
During the case, the Adjudication Panel for England was told that Mr Livingstone felt he had been persecuted by the press. The Mayor said that his retort was expressing his "long-held and, it is accepted, honestly-held, political view" of Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard.
He accused them of anti-Semitism, and the Standard of "harassing" the largely gay private reception held at City Hall but paid for with public money. Mr Livingstone did not intend to offend the Jewish community but was exercising his freedom of speech, and had been rude to journalists for years, he said.
Adrian Cohen, the chairman of the London Jewish Forum, welcomed the ruling. "It should never have reached this point when a simple apology could have avoided all the pain caused to so many Jewish Londoners who have been affected by the Holocaust," he said.
"The mayor urgently needs to develop a strategy which accords to the Jews of London both dignity and respect. This can only be achieved if he invites and facilitates the full involvement and participation of London’s Jewish community and their mainstream institutions in the work of the GLA."
Brian Coleman, the London Assembly deputy chairman, said: "London deserves better. This is a humiliation for Ken Livingstone. He has let down every Londoner who has ever put their trust in him. His remarks were deeply offensive to every decent-minded person. If he had apologised, this entire episode would not have arisen. His refusal to do so means he brought this all upon himself."
Veronica Wadley, Editor of the Evening Standard, said that Mr Livingstone should now apologise to those he had offended. "There is no question that he caused offence to many Londoners by his comments, and his stubborn refusal to say sorry aggravated the position.
"Mr Livingstone not only offended London’s Jewish community but then he did not show the stature expected of the mayor of London by apologising.
"As the Standards Board found, our reporter questioned Mr Livingstone in a ‘civil tone’. Oliver Finegold behaved impeccably and was polite at all times as he questioned Mr Livingstone when he left a civic party. As the tape recording shows, Oliver Finegold did not swear at the mayor, or was in any way hostile."
