Nazi row mayor 'to express regret'
LONDON, England -- London Mayor Ken Livingstone is expected to express regret this week for comparing a Jewish newspaper reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard, his deputy said Sunday.
Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron said she expects Livingstone to make a statement on Tuesday. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has publicly called on the mayor to apologize.
"I work very closely with Ken so I can speak of what he's like in his guarded and unguarded moments and ... he is in no way anti-Jewish, I wouldn't for a moment work with him if he were," said Gavron, whose parents survived the Holocaust.
"On the other hand, I think his remarks were inappropriate and I believe it is important, and I believe he will, come to the point where he says, 'I regret that I have caused offence to the wider Jewish community.'
"I hope he will do it soon, and it is mooted that he is going to make some sort of statement on Tuesday," she told BBC television.
The Commission for Racial Equality has referred Livingstone's remarks to the Standards Board for England for a ruling on whether his conduct breached the Race Relations Act.
The Standards Board -- the official local government watchdog -- has already received one official complaint over Livingstone's remarks from the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
The Standards Board has the power to suspend him or bar him from office if he is found to have brought his office into disrepute.
Livingstone has repeatedly refused to say sorry for his remarks, despite demands for an apology by Jewish community leaders, Holocaust survivors, the Greater London Assembly and British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell.
"You may think my remarks to that reporter -- and many over the years -- are offensive," the mayor said last Tuesday. "That is purely a matter of judgment. If you think they are racist I think you are wrong.
"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," he told a City Hall news conference.
"I am not going to apologize if I do not believe that I have done something wrong. It would be very easy for me to buy off media pressure by lying but I am not going to do it."
On Wednesday, Blair called on Livingstone to say sorry.
"A lot of us in politics get angry with journalists from time to time but in the circumstances, and to the journalist because he was a Jewish journalist, yes he should apologize," Blair said.
"Let's just apologize and move on -- that's the sensible thing," Blair said while answering public questions during an appearance on Britain's Channel Five television.
Blair's call for an apology came as an inspection team from the International Olympic Committee was conducting a four-day tour to assess London's bid for the 2012 Summer Games. There have been fears the row could damage Britain's chances to host the Olympics.
Livingstone was banished from Blair's Labour Party for five years after it refused to back him as its candidate for London mayor in the 2000 election.
At the time, Blair said he would be a "disaster" for London. Livingstone was readmitted to the party ahead of his 2004 re-election as mayor.
Livingstone's outburst came last week as London Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold asked him for a comment as he left a party for Labour MP Chris Smith.
Livingstone's comment also came as a new report was released showing that the number of anti-Semitic attacks in Britain had risen sharply and reached record levels in 2004, including physical attacks, name calling, hate mail and the desecration of property, such as the vandalism of synagogues with swastikas.
The mayor, an outspoken left-winger nicknamed Red Ken, has no love of the Evening Standard and its conservative sister paper, the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail had a pro-Nazi editorial line in the 1930s, and Livingstone asked Finegold if he had been a "German war criminal."
When the reporter replied he was Jewish, Livingstone said: "Actually you are just like a concentration camp guard. You're just doing it because you're paid to, aren't you?"
A tape recording of the conversation was played Monday at a meeting of the Greater London Assembly, which passed a unanimous motion calling on the mayor to withdraw his remarks.
It said that, despite Livingstone's record in fighting racism, his remarks damaged his credibility, offended the Jewish community and probably hurt London's chances of hosting the 2012 Olympics.
Livingstone defended his actions, saying he had been the victim of a hate campaign lasting almost 25 years at the hands of the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail.
"I have spent my entire life fighting against racism -- whether against Jewish people, black people, Asians or anyone else," he said.
Were you a German war criminal? Actually you are just like a concentration camp guard.
