In an emotional but robust statement, Ken Livingstone has today refused to apologise to the Evening Standard reporter or the Daily Mail Group for comments in which he likened a reporter to a concentration camp guard.
Speaking at City Hall he said there would be “no apology” but has expressed his “regret” to members of London’s Jewish community who may have been affected by the resulting media row.
The Mayor told reporters present that he was “always” available to them for interviews and reactions to stories and that there was no defence to ‘doorstep’ him or for the reporter to follow him along the road repeatedly “barking” the same question.
During a question session which followed the Mayor’s statement he told a reporter from the Evening Standard that their coverage of the incident was “not worthy of any serious newspaper”.
In response to complaints by the Jewish Chronicle, Livingstone pointed out that the paper had published a letter containing a Holocaust related “derogatory term” in February 2003 which he claimed was far worse than his own comments.
