I invited Ken Livingstone (mainly because the new President wanted to invite a pop star otherwise!) to the 1st Union General Meeting of SOAS Students' Union to talk about activism and grass roots democracy.
Chatting to him briefly before hand I asked him to stress the importance of working with United Fronts such as Stop the War, which in the past he has supported. Not only did he not even mention it but he blatantly had a dig at revolutionaries and continued by saying that he was a realist and an unrepentant reformist.
When questioned on his response to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the fact that he backed Police chief Ian Blair, he was even more disgusting. He said that everyone makes mistakes whatever their line of work. When a journalist prints an inaccurancy, he said, they have to apologise and get on with it.
What a disgraceful comparison to make-oops sorry, we just shot you repeatedly in the head...back to work lads.
Chatting to him briefly before hand I asked him to stress the importance of working with United Fronts such as Stop the War, which in the past he has supported. Not only did he not even mention it but he blatantly had a dig at revolutionaries and continued by saying that he was a realist and an unrepentant reformist.
When questioned on his response to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the fact that he backed Police chief Ian Blair, he was even more disgusting. He said that everyone makes mistakes whatever their line of work. When a journalist prints an inaccurancy, he said, they have to apologise and get on with it.
What a disgraceful comparison to make-oops sorry, we just shot you repeatedly in the head...back to work lads.
5 comments:
That's pretty revolting.
I know he's been going rotten for years now but that's just disgusting. Should have gone for the pop star.
Excellent blog by the way.
Cool baby, cool - Slimey people do get under our skins, but I wouldn't let Ken get under mine - the man is a lost cause. I bumped into him in West London a few months ago - both of us were rushing for the underground tube, I, going home after 8 hours at work, so looked rough and tumbled - he in his unemployed status looked 10 times worse than me - he looked exhausted. I gave him a hug and asked him what he was up to. He said "Am back working now - one cannot rest for ever." A few days later he was on the front pages as guru for Chavez and the Venezuelan economy - in return for the kindness of the Venezualan government whilst he was still mayor. So much for working I thought!
Ken Livingstone sold his soul when he rejoined New Labour and he will never get it back. Without a soul, one is a lost cause and you have made sure that he digs his own grave even more because no student group will invite someone like him and certainly I cannot see any credible organisation relying on him. Keep up the good work and have fun on Friday.
Funny to see 'support Ken, our anti-war mayor' groups pop up on facebook before the election in May - has Ken actually been 'anti-war' for some time now? Pro big business, pro murderous police and pro-racist stop and search policy, but 'anti-war'? Most of his image as a left-winger came from his supporters, not from him or anything he did. And the fat cats in the City were backing his re-election.. says it all.
First time I've been able to read your blog Clare. Really interesting, keep up the good work. Although I find it amusing at your inconsistent reference to me as Co- President in some posts and the President in others. As someone who did the job for 2 years, I would have thought you would have known...
Also, even more amusing is how you invited Ken. I could have sworn it was me who chased his people up, got his number, spoke to him and fixed a date to come down, i.e. invited him. Secondly, the reference to a 'popstar'; I'm sure what you meant is how I wanted to bring an inspirational speaker who would draw in new students to the UGM. I'm sure its just the way you worded things that have confused things a little.
Viva la revolution.
Thx for reading my blog Co-President (!) Niz, i hope you find some of the articles useful.
I didn't mean to undermine the hard work you did getting Ken in to speak-when i asked him to speak the lst year he bluntly refused saying 'i didn't think SOAS liked me'. So, it's great that you managed to persuade him. When you and i spoke in the summer break about who to invite for the first UGM i suggested Ken again because i thought because i thought it would be a nice token of unity given that we (Left List, Lindsey German) stood against him in the he Mayoral elections.
You initially mentioned bringing in someone more 'neutral' like a pop star and we both agreed that it would be better to have a political figure given that UGM is a political arena. And i think it worked well.
I didn't expect him to be brilliant but then again, i also didnt expect him to be as sectarian as he was so i guess i was a bit pissed with him.
Anyway, apologies for the poor reporting. I need to be more careful-thx for pointing this out.
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