So Ken Livingstone is suspended from office for a month for his (subjectively) racist remarks to a reporter. Harry’s, Brighton Regency, A Councillor, The Torygraph, well, use the search engines yourselves to find more views. Myself, if I actually thought that we had a functioning democracy in the UK still, would be more worried than I am.
Strip away the who said what said bit, whether it was racist speech or not, look at exactly what happened.
An elected politician was removed from office by the bureaucracy of the State.
Do we really want to go down that road? Only those whose views are acceptable to said bureacracy may remain in office? Will we have an ideology test before someone may stand for office? Anyone may be a candidate as long as they are members of the Communist Party? As long as they sign up to the prevailing ethos?
No, I don’t think so, really not sure that this is exactly what we want. I dislike Livingstone intensely (my only personal interaction with him has been waiting upon his table in a restaurant a couple of decades ago. I tend to think that you can learn a lot about a man’s character by how he treats the "servants" and he was fine. My dislike is based on his politics, not his personal character.) but a good test of one’s commitment to anything is your reaction when someone you normally dislike is hit with what you regard as an injustice.
Should Nick Griffin be banned from politics? From being able to stand? If he actually won a seat as a councillor, should his elected position be taken away from him? As long as he hasn’t breached the criminal law, no. Should G. Galloway be banned from the Commons for his repulsive views? No. MPs have to go if they are made bankrupt or sentenced to more than 1 year in jail.
Should Ken be suspended because he breached the "code of conduct"? No. There shouldn’t be such a code of conduct in the first place. That’s giving far too much power to the bureaucracy that writes said code and far too little to the people who are allowed to elect anyone they damn well please. "Allowed" may be too weak a word there.
I think Larry Flynt had the right idea here, talking about the First Amendment in the US. When found not guilty he said "If the law protects a scumbag like me then it’ll protect you."
Quite. Livingstone won a democratic election fair and square. The only people who can remove him from office (barring an untimely death, of course) are the people at the next scheduled such or a conviction under the criminal law. Being rude, breaching a speech code or insulting a reporter (what else are they for?) doesn’t meet that standard. And having the bureaucracy decide who we can elect to run said bureaucracy on our behalf is a negation, a nullifcation, of the entire idea of democracy itself.
I hope he does appeal and wins.
en livingstone
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