JUST when it is becoming possible to feel the tiniest bit well disposed towards the London Olympic bid, something always comes along to replace the warm feeling with a queasy one. Or someone: in this case, Ken Livingstone.
In a week that brings the bid evaluation team from the International Olympic Committee into town, London’s Mayor finds himself in a row over anti-Semitism — on the surface at least. Taken at face value, Livingstone is in trouble because he made insensitive and racially charged comments to a reporter from the Evening Standard, and subsequently has refused to apologise. Is this enough to wish ill of the London Olympic campaign? No.
The subtext of this spat, though, is mayoral vanity and idiocy, traits that can only be accentuated by placing Livingstone ever more at the centre of public life. He is London’s problem now; if his city gets the Games, he will be yours, too.
First, a little context is required. On February 8, Livingstone hosted a party at City Hall to mark the 20-year anniversary of Chris Smith, MP, coming out as gay. Some would have taken Smith to his favourite restaurant or had him round for a drink. Livingstone instead drew £4,000 from the mayoral jolly-up fund and played big-hearted Charlie with that instead. Not that Livingstone is personally strapped for cash. Just that the stuff he failed to declare to Parliament five years ago totalled £158,000. Even so, it was his round and you paid. You can see why he could be such a boon to a project where the swimming and diving facilities alone cost £70 million.
Outside the function was the reporter, Oliver Finegold. The Evening Standard has a long record of antipathy with the Mayor’s office and he was no doubt sent to ask such pertinent questions as: “Ever heard of a whip-round?” Or: “Why not say it with flowers?” He did not get that far. This is their conversation, starting with a lame joke.
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Finegold: “Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard — how did tonight go?”
Livingstone: “How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment?”
Finegold: “Was it a good party? What does it mean for you?”
Livingstone: “What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?”
Finegold: “No, I’m Jewish. I wasn’t a German war criminal and I’m actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go?”
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Livingstone: “Right, well you might be — but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are doing it just because you are paid to, aren’t you?”
Finegold: “Great, I have you on record for that. So, how was tonight?”
Livingstone: “It’s nothing to do with you because your paper is a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots.”
Finegold: “I’m a journalist and I’m doing my job. I’m only asking for a comment.”
Livingstone: “Well, work for a paper that doesn’t have a record of supporting fascism.”
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That London’s Mayor, under pressure, resorts to childish name-calling is a worry, but there is mitigation. He had been at a party, which he clearly suspected would be the subject of negative scrutiny, felt threatened and went on the attack. The fact it was a social occasion meant his guard was down. He said some daft things. We’ve all been there.
I do not believe he intended anti-Semitism in his comments. Yet what happened next is scandalous. The next day, clear-headed and with the chance to review the situation rationally, Livingstone’s office issued a statement, almost 500 words long, seeking to justify his comments based on historical fact.
The statement detailed links between Associated Newspapers — owner of the Evening Standard — and its support for fascism 70 years ago. It quoted a headline from 1934, a commentary from 1928, the political preferences of the present Lord Rothermere’s great-grandfather. As if this could justify a slur against a journalist working for the company under different employers in the 21st century. It would be like blaming David Beckham for Eddie Hapgood’s decision to lead England’s players in a Nazi salute in Berlin in 1938. Or taking Livingstone to task for the fact that Dick Whittington made his cat wear boots.
Still, if the mayor is let within a mile of the Evaluation Commission, it should make for surreal conversation. He could strike up an earnest dialogue with José Luis Marco, the IOC representative from Argentina, asking why it took his country until 1945 to enter the war on the side of the Allies, with the majority favouring the Axis powers until defeat became inevitable.
Considering his support for the gay community, Livingstone might ask how Chris Smith would fare as a politician in Singapore. And here comes a man that might know: Ng Ser-Miang, part of the IOC commission and a member of the Singaporean parliament that classes homosexual acts as illegal.
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Is it unfair to associate Livingstone so strongly with the Olympic bid? Not really. He will certainly have more input at the planning stage of London 2012 than an unborn journalist called Finegold would have had in the Daily Mail headline “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” written in January 1934. Indeed, Livingstone will be directly involved in the progress of the Evaluation Commission around his city, thanks to a little bit of technical wizardry, revealed by Lord Coe, the London bid chairman.
To maintain the illusion of a successfully functioning transport network in the capital, Coe says that there will be traffic management. “We’re not talking about closing roads, but there may be some re-sequencing of traffic lights. It’s done all the time,” he explained.
Yes, and most famously in the build-up to Livingstone’s congestion charge scheme, when the Standard and other critics claimed that traffic light sequences had been altered to create jams, so that the chaos would miraculously disappear post-charging, a crude propaganda exercise.
I read an article in the New Statesman by Professor Ivor Gaber that, while not denying lights had been re-sequenced — sources may have “misunderstood” a briefing by Transport for London, he suggested — insisted that Livingstone had been harshly treated by the media over such stories, most specifically by newspapers in the Associated group. At the bottom was the declaration of interest: “Ivor Gaber is professor (emeritus) of broadcast journalism at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His research report (funded by the Office of the Mayor of London) is available from the college.” So no potential conflict of interest there then. Not that politicians prefer a tame press.
So while the Evaluation Commission scoot around the capital like the Jetsons, the rest of us are presumably meant to stand by the kerbside and wave flags in a somnolent show of unity. This is tough on Londoners who, right now, seem to own their city only when there is a bill to pay.
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The Olympics will cost money, but Londoners should have pride in being the hosts, is the argument. But if it is their city, why does Livingstone keep charging them to enter it? In this way, the Mayor’s modern, socialist capital is like that bastion of old wealth and privilege on its outskirts, Windsor Castle: another place that the public only discovered belonged to them when there was a debt to settle. On November 19, 1992, the people of Great Britain were still paying to look around it. On November 20, the castle went up in smoke, uninsured. On November 21, it turned out to have been ours all along.
This seems to be the logic with the Olympics: Londoners will pay to have the Olympics in London, but must pay to visit London, too. And while the Jetsons get their lights changed to green, Londoners may be stuck on red to make the Mayor look good. And what will make him look even better? Why, an Olympics, of course. Imagine the parades, the posturing and the parties: four grand to buy his mate a lager top won’t be the half of it. The logistics have never been convincing, the long-term worth is dubious and the public support variable: but the personnel that stand to benefit continue to make the most convincing argument against a Games in London.
“You can’t expect to work for the Daily Mail group and have the rest of society treat you with respect as a useful member of society,” Livingstone said this week. Wise words, mate. And as a restaurant critic for the London Evening Standard between 1996 and 2000, he would know.