Labour for Boris

After the report of what Ken Livingstone said about Jewish Londoners, I said the other day on Twitter that, as a non-Jewish Labour voter, I would be voting for Boris Johnson in the London mayoral election in May.

A reader asked me to explain. That might take too long. Instead, here are some Livingstone quotations, thanks to my friend Julie:

“World wide capitalism kills more people everyday then Hitler did. And he was crazy.”

“Bring a private prosecution against Tony Blair for war crimes … devote your life to that.”

“I opposed the war in Iraq. I took the last Labour government to court five times.”

“I never voted for New Labour. I never voted for Tony Blair and I stood against his awful government”

It was a hard decision last time. But not this time.

Photograph: PA

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• grabbler

  Right on Ken!  They’ve all made gaffs in their time and none more than Boris but every line 0f Ken’s quoted here is music to my ears.  Blair wasn’t a genuine Labour man, he was a Tory mole.  What does that make you John Rentoul?

• TheOnlyWayIsNorfolk

  How can you ever vote for anyone who wore a police uniform?

• http://twitter.com/verbAdam verbAdam

  Ken has always cynically chased votes by playing the race card. He knows full well that a few well placed anti-semitic comments will win votes with the racists in east london. But he’s getting old, not as sharp as he used to be. He’ll say something even more stupid than usual and he’ll lose.

• Kolya Wolf

  John Rentoul,

  As a Jew whose grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz, I thank you.

• takeoman

  Rentoul J. is asked for an explanation, his response “” that might take too long”". He does however  toss us a few quotes that “”his friend Julie”" has dug up, none of which have anything to do with what Livingstone said about Jewish Londoners.

• http://twitter.com/reddeviljp jaydeepee

   Exactly. Rentoul is miffed because his dreamboy Tony was booted by Labour and should be in a prison cell in the Hague charged with crimes against humanity. He’s never got over Blair’s departure. Man up, please.

• mightymark

  As someone who broadly shares Mr Rentoul’s views in this matter – let me let you into a secret. ( (We?) am actually are less “annoyed” by that sugggestion than I am confirmed in the view that those who make it are a bunch of crazy obsessives. In this case the idea that one “devotes one’s life to it” suggests something yet morre patholigical. Even if you were against the war there must be better ways to do something to better the lives of those who suffered (something like VSO in Iraq perhaps?).

  More significantly while I am not surprised to learn that Livingstone made these remarks this is first I have seen of them and would be interested in some chapter and verse. They suggest that Livingsrtone is more serial ly disloyal to Labour than I had thought – something I will remind my fellow Labour Party members of when I am doorstepped soon and myself accused of disloyalty in refusing to vote for him.

• http://twitter.com/RossGarrod Ross

  Could you just abstain from voting?

• Liberanos

  Ken’s tax hypocrisy alone would be a reason to distrust him. But his blatant effort to attract the muslim vote by abandoning every decent socialist principle just cannot be ignored.

  When he flung his arms about the appalling cleric Yusuf Qaradari, who’d recently confirmed his view that female genital mutilation, the hanging of homosexuals, the destruction of Jews and the beating of wives were all to be obeyed as holy Islamic imperatives, surely most civilised people felt total revulsion. I know I did.

  Voting for Boris is hard for a visceral Labour voter.

  But that’s what I’ll be doing.

• http://twitter.com/mryashin Lev Yashin

  By all means don’t vote for Ken, but it would be petty, spiteful and self-defeating for a Labour voter (which you claim to be) to vote for Boris.