# Why give red ken a hard time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2005, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-give-red-ken-a-hard-time/291510 "2005-02-23T11:01:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-give-red-ken-a-hard-time/291510/21 "2005-02-23T16:06:39Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > According to the [transcript in the Telegraph](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/15/ukensaid.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/02/15/ixportaltop.html), the mayor started in before the reporter stated that he was doing his job. Is the transcript incomplete or misleading in some way? > > On preview, it occurs to me that the Telegraph might be a subscription site – I’ve long since lost track of which cookies I have and which I don’t. So the transcript: > **Oliver Finegold:** Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did tonight go? > > **Livingstone:** How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment? > > \*\*Finegold: \*\*How did tonight go? > > **Livingstone:** 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? > > **Livingstone:** Ah right, well you might be [Jewish], but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it 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 you 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 facism. > > Livingstone then walked off. You need to follow the story from its inception and be aware of the history of the Mail and Ken. The reporter and the newspaper have been incessantly doorstepping him in pursuance of a political vendetta. Straw that broke the Red Camels back. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-give-red-ken-a-hard-time/291510/22 "2005-02-23T16:20:31Z")
What a tempest in a teapot! I didn’t know that the PC police had made it into the British media–we suffer from it terribly here. I am not defending the use of hate speech and the like, but can someone really make a stink over that exchange? The only thing I am left curious about is what was the event Ken had just come from–and I’m not even interested enough to click on the link. (what a horrible sentence!) I may well call someone a Nazi here (as in soup Nazi) and by no means do I intend to truly call the person a follower of Hitler, nor do I imply that Nazism is something to be taken lightly. IMO, concentration camp guard (while not my first choice) is in the same league. I highly doubt that this journalist was truly offended by Ken’s remark–he just saw a way to flog papers. Here is comes: my American eye roll at the whole thing! :rolleyes: 🙂 Kinda nice to know that your press also gets sucked into stupid, pointless stories while not covering truly important news… ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-give-red-ken-a-hard-time/291510/23 "2005-02-23T16:29:17Z")
As a complete outsider, I just have this to say: (1) Red Ken is experienced enough as a politician to know he shold not lose in cool in front of a reporter with a tape recorder, eespecially one from a hostile paper. (2) The Daily Mail doesn’t care a fig about insults to Jews: it only wants to sell papers, and change the political party running Greater London, in hat order of priority. (3) Calling a Jew a Nazi is not anti-Semitic. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-give-red-ken-a-hard-time/291510/24 "2005-02-23T17:54:15Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I have to ask - what if the reporter had been African-American, and this guy had called him an “Uncle Tom?” No saying a Black reporter was as bad as a Slave Owner would be more of an annalogy. In which case the correct response after being called out for saying such a thing is to say that you recognise how horrible and abhorant slave owners and slavery is, and to appologise to anyone whom might have been offended by the remark. Which is pretty much by annalogy what Red Ken did. ---
**Author:** ![Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walker_in_Eternity)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-give-red-ken-a-hard-time/291510/25 "2005-02-23T19:03:46Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > According to the [transcript in the Telegraph](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/15/ukensaid.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/02/15/ixportaltop.html), the mayor started in before the reporter stated that he was doing his job. Is the transcript incomplete or misleading in some way? > > On preview, it occurs to me that the Telegraph might be a subscription site – I’ve long since lost track of which cookies I have and which I don’t. So the transcript: > **Oliver Finegold:** Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did tonight go? > > **Livingstone:** How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment? > > \*\*Finegold: \*\*How did tonight go? > > **Livingstone:** 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? > > **Livingstone:** Ah right, well you might be [Jewish], but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it 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 you 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 facism. > > Livingstone then walked off. Am I missing something here? Whats all this have you been receiving treatment about, is there part of the conversation missing in these transcripts? From this though it doesn’t seem like the reporter provoked Ken in quite the manner that he implied in his interview. Just goes to show that you can’t trust a polititian. But is it just me or does his insult seem relatively benign, I agree with Owlstretchingtime that we use the term Nazi all the time, in fact we nicknamed a guy I used to work with the Health and safety Nazi, but no offence was meant to any ethnic group, it just implied that the bloke took himself and his job a bit to seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walker_in_Eternity)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-give-red-ken-a-hard-time/291510/26 "2005-02-23T19:10:21Z")
> [@owlstretchingtime](#): > > What is the real problem here is that there is lots to blame Livingstone for. Here are some of them: > > The tube - expensive and wonky. > > Bendy buses - not wanted and they catch fire. Also it’s £1.20 a ride! > > That muslim nutter he keeps sucking up to with the rather odd take on homosexuality, infidels and wife beating. Ironically he’s make a great concentration camp guard. > > The st Patricks Day parade > > The useless police. > > Crime > > Litter. > > The general pikiness of the West End > > and so on…(and this without going into his loony left years) > > This barely comes into it. Got to say I agree with you, I don’t live in London so I am not aware of all the problems, buses, west end etc, but Red Ken has done much worse things than insult a few people. He ought to seriously consider the company he keeps and the impression that give to the country, at this rate he will be joining George Galloway in RESPECT. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-give-red-ken-a-hard-time/291510.md?page=1)