Spat turns into career-threatening war

When Ken Livingstone walked briskly from his offices shortly after 9pm (local time) last Tuesday, he appeared to expect his off-the-cuff remarks to a waiting reporter to form the basis of little more than an eyebrow-raising diary item.

On being approached the next day for a comment on why the Mayor of London had responded to the journalist's Jewish origins by likening him to a concentration camp guard, his office insisted the comment had been part of a "relatively light-hearted" exchange.

Given that he had previously locked horns with formidable adversaries from Baroness Thatcher to the Labour spin machine, Livingstone believed a brief spat with a lone reporter could provoke little interest.

By the end of his weekly press briefing, he had cause to think again.

Livingstone's 30-second exchange with Oliver Finegold of the Evening Standard had mutated into a career-threatening war of attrition with Jewish leaders and one of Britain's most powerful newspaper dynasties.

Despite an almost unanimous call for him to apologise for his remarks, the veteran politician chose to come out fighting.

Batting aside concern that the row is damaging London's multi-cultural credentials in a crucial week for its bid to hold the 2012 Olympic Games, Livingstone conceded that his remarks to Finegold could be seen as offensive and even liable to legal complaint.

But the embattled 112,000-a-year mayor insisted during a press conference broadcast that, because his remarks were not racist, there were no grounds for an apology.

Livingstone said: "You can make the case my remarks were offensive and that they may be actionable and may have recourse in law but you can't make the case they were racist.

"I have always had the view that if I had made a mistake, I would apologise. I am not going to apologise if I do not believe that I have done something wrong."

Instead, Livingstone stepped up his attack on the Evening Standard and its sister paper, the Daily Mail.

He reiterated his criticism of the Daily Mail's flirtation with fascism during the 1930s and subsequent coverage of minorities from Irish immigrants to asylum seekers.

It was the Daily Mail's support of Oswald Mosley's fascist movement which Livingstone said had caused him to ask Finegold if he was a "German war criminal".

He labelled the Daily Mail group as among the "most reprehensibly managed, edited and owned newspapers in the world", later claiming the Daily Mail titles "continue to provide food for racism today".

Associated Newspapers, the owner of the Daily Mail titles, made no comment.

But there were signs that the increasing bitterness was causing more widespread damage, in particular to the capital's Olympic bid on the day when Livingstone was to meet the delegation assessing London's plans for the 2012 Games.

One IOC member expressed dismay that such an experienced politician had become embroiled in a row of this nature in the most important week for London's bid so far.

- INDEPENDENT