Ken Livingstone

Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born June 17, 1945), is a British local government leader. He has been the Mayor of London since the creation of the post in 2000 and was Leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 until it was abolished in 1986. After abolition he became Member of Parliament for Brent East, but did not enjoy national politics and had little impact in Parliament. He is noted for his plain, even blunt, speaking which has won him praise and critics on various occasions.

Reaction to London bombings

Within hours of the London bombings, Livingstone, speaking off the cuff, and from half way around the world at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore where it had recently been announced London would host the 2012 Olympic Games, delivered a speech. Livingstone was visibly shaken and his voice conveyed a sense of disbelief and anger at the atrocities which had just been perpetrated in his home city.

Related Topics:
117th IOC Session - Singapore - 2012 Olympic Games

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Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.

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I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others ? that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.

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In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

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They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4660477.stm

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On July 20, 2005, Livingstone made the following comments in a BBC interview about the role of foreign policy as a motivation for the bombing:

Related Topics:
July 20 - 2005 - BBC

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I think you've just had 80 years of western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the western need for oil.

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We've propped up unsavoury governments, we've overthrown ones we didn't consider sympathetic.

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And I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s ... the Americans recruited and trained Osama Bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians and drive them out of Afghanistan.

Related Topics:
Osama Bin Laden - Russia - Afghanistan

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They didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that he might turn on his creators.

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A lot of young people see the double standards, they see what happens in Guantanamo Bay, and they just think that there isn't a just foreign policy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4698963.stm

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Livingstone defended the police after the mistaken killing of an innocent Brazilian man, Jean Charles de Menezes, who police believed was a suicide bomber.

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