Perhaps Red Ken would like to participate in a live-fire reenactment of Tiananmen Square. He could put his acting skills to great use and play a pro-democracy protestor, preferrably standing in front of a tank. Then we’ll ask him if he finds it “interesting.” What an absolute prick.
However, since he is a bigoted populist posing as a socialist, I should think he will enjoy China.
Ken Livingstone has compared events in China’s Tiananmen Square to the history of protest in London’s Trafalgar Square during a visit to Beijing.
China’s human rights record was raised as he went to the site of the 1989 massacre. London’s Mayor said his city also had an “interesting history”.
“We’ve had some interesting riots in Trafalgar Square - I mean, only 20 years ago, the poll tax riots, and flames licking up.”
Mr Livingstone said: "If you go back to some of the early instances you will find many cases where innocent protesters were hacked to pieces with sabres - the Peterloo Massacre, for example.
“There is no such thing as one country with a perfect record.”
At least he got something right. Long-time watchers of British politics will know that the London mayor has a talent for mixing the patently obvious with the patently ridiculous.
Has there been any Western leader who has stood up and straight out condemned the Tiananmen Massacre while actually in China?
Actually wondering- can’t think of any off-hand
I was stuck right in the middle of the 1990 Poll Tax Riot and it taught me a lot about what happened in Beijing a year earlier - crowd and police behaviour, the role of rumour etc.
[quote]The scale of the chaos and panic at the heart of the police response to the Poll Tax riots of 31 March 1990 - one of the most violent protests to ever take place in Britain - is revealed for the first time in classified documents released by the Government.
Confidential police radio messages and surveillance reports show how officers made strategic mistakes, surrendered control of parts of central London and ended up calling for armed response teams when all appeared lost.
By midnight nearly 5,000 civilians and police officers had been injured and 339 people had been arrested. The final bill for damages ran into millions of pounds.[/quote] Source (my emphasis)
Juba, my lil’ sister was caught up in that. Having been on many a demo in Australia she was shocked at the way the English police bottled up the demo and then upped the violence.
Red Ken was a huge fan of the IRA back in the day when that sort of thing was fashionable in London amongst the chattering classes. He’ll say anything to get on the telly.
Not so. Ken Livingstone was always in favour of British withdrawal from Northern Ireland, the same as the majority of Irish people and a lot of British people too. He was Member of Parliament for Brent South, which has a very large number of Irish constituents. Living in the neighbouring constituency of Westminster North, I saw Ken Livingstone speak in public on numerous occasions. Some far-left students pressed him to make pro-IRA statements, but he never did so. He stated that he represented Londoners and he could not support bomb attacks that killled Londoners. I also saw how the media treated him when a TV crew went to the Polytechnic of Central London Student Union just to record his response to one set-up question from a Zionist student, after which the TV crew immediatedly unplugged their equipment and left.
[quote=“The BBC”]On the programme Mr Livingstone also took questions on his views on the IRA, after he called them “freedom fighters” during the 1980s.
He said: "That is how the IRA saw themselves - at the time the British Government’s views were that these were simply psychopaths and godfathers of crime.
“They denied a political motive, I therefore said you’ve got to understand the political motive of the IRA.”
Ken Livingstone is just one of a long line of English politicians with very strong opinions about Northern Ireland which are dusted off and paraded in front of voters from time to time and then quickly forgotten about. Perhaps he didn’t read Sinn Fein’s manifesto in the 1980s. Perhaps he had no idea how unpopular in Ireland SF’s goal of a 32-county Marxist state was. Perhaps he has an explanation for the low level of support for the IRA in Ireland in the 1980s. Perhaps he can explain why successive Irish governments banned Sinn Fein from politics and the media. Perhaps he can surprise the people of Northern Ireland, from both sides, who know the IRA has been for years a straightforward collection of “psychopaths and godfathers of crime”. Perhaps not. Inviting Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison to the GLC at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign is a hell of a statement. If it’s not a statement of support for the IRA then I don’t know what it is. Indeed I wonder how much time the man’s actually spent in Ireland? When he popped over to see Gerry and Danny after it was discovered the Prevention of Terrorism Act stopped them going to London I wonder did he discuss what was to be done to get the Irish population in London back hoem to Ireland, a country they had to leave in no small part because of the nonsense in the North. We will note for the record that Livingstone didn’t invite the Official IRA which still existed at the time (maybe he’s never heard of them?) or the Workers’ Party, and any of the constitutional parties, or even the INLA, which was doing most of the killing at the time (they’d have just shot him anyway for fun). Oh no. Not glamorous enough for our Ken.
I suppose he’ll be inviting Osama bin Laden to London for a chat about resolving the problems that freedom fighter has with British foreign policy?
I wonder did our amatuer foreign secretary/Northern Ireland secretary feel even a little bit stupid when it transpired that there had been on-and-off dialogue between the IRA and the British government all along - even when Ken was pulling his silly populist stunts at the GLC?
You can’t really take Ken Livingstone seriously, surely? Frankly, Gerry Adams, even as an ex-IRA man, comes across as twice the man Livingstone is, not I suppose that that’s saying much. And now these comments about Tiananmen Square? Beggars belief.
Will you ever see any of the neo cons like the OP having a go at his darlings in the Bush junta for bending over for the Chinese government?
When you have Chinese generals saying they can nuke the US where is the criticism?
No-where to be seen.
The chinese government are scum and murderers (perfect for the US government - no matter who is sitting in the chair). But business and profits for the slugs pulling the strings is all that matters doesn’t it?
