Another day, another blog about Ken Livingstone. Jeremy Corbyn’s latest place-man, as Labour’s bumbling leader seeks to reintroduce the “new politics” of intolerance and abuse from the 1980s to the Labour Party. It’s working pretty well so far.
After yesterday’s crass attack by Livingstone on Labour MP Kevan Jones about mental health, London’s former mayor was asked about the affair by Radio Five Live’s Nicky Campbell. May I remind you that Livingstone referred to the MP, who has in the past suffered from mental health issues, of needing “psychiatric help”, that he was”obviously very depressed and disturbed” and “should see a GP”. A half-hearted apology was offered yesterday after being told he should apologise by Corbyn, but today Livingstone employed the “if I had known” defence. “If I had known that Kevan Jones had suffered from mental health problems, I would never have used a nasty, cheap method of attacking him for having the brass neck to disagree with me”, he didn’t say, but that is precisely what he meant.
Campbell than asked Livingstone about the comments of Sue Baker, director of Time To Change, the mental health campaign group, who had said this:
“It’s as unacceptable to trade insults on the basis of someone’s mental health experiences as it would be on the basis of their race, gender or sexuality.
“Kevan has been widely praised for opening up about his experiences and helping to make big strides against stigma, particularly in parliamentary circles.
We know that many people still feel uncomfortable talking about their mental health problems, and we would encourage everyone to consider the impact of using mental health related language that could fuel misunderstanding and stigma.”
His answer? “No.” He said no. He didn’t agree. Then he must think it is acceptable to trade insults on the basis of someone’s mental health experiences and he can’t give a toss about fuelling misunderstanding and stigma. What a disgrace.
“If I had known,” was the best he could come up with. Imagine if he had made unfortunate comments about someone was gay? “If I had known” would hardly be an acceptable justification, would it? The “if I had known” defence is simply this: if you disagree with me, you are mentally ill.
I find myself, not for the first time lately, agreeing with a Tory MP on an important issue. Charles Walker, who went public with his own mental health problems – I exchanged some private emails with him and his bravery touched me, as did his kindness in taking the time and trouble to reply – said he was “absolutely seething” about Livingstone’s “vile” remarks. Well, so am I, as you may have noticed.
It is almost as if the Labour Party is desperately trying to destroy itself. Will Corbyn next ask Gerry Adams to advise on his policy on Ireland? Perhaps he could ask one of his friends from Hamas to advise on the middle east?
Incredibly, Livingstone then more than implied that his ugly attack on Kevan Jones was somehow in retribution for those MPs who were undermining Jeremy Corbyn. What nonsense. The Labour leader himself is doing perfectly well undermining his own leadership on a daily basis without the wild imaginings of ‘Red Ken”.
Corbyn should not just have told Livingstone to apologise for his attack on Kevan Jones, he should have sacked him from his un-elected role as Maria Eagle’s “minder” on the defence review committee, but that won’t happen. Livingstone is one of his political allies whom he will use in this refreshing new era in Labour politics to drag Labour still further to the far left and making it even more unelectable, if that were possible to make it even more unelectable.
“Straight talking, honest politics” was Labour’s slogan at their September conference. That didn’t last very long, did it?
