Go Ken!

Ken Livingstone sparks anger with 'hang bankers' speech

Mayoral candidate's comment condemned by British Bankers' Association, despite being labelled a joke by his spokesman

The Guradian,17 Febraury, 2012

Ken Livingstone has provoked fresh controversy, after telling an audience: "Hang a banker a week until the others improve."

The British Bankers' Association rounded on the comments, made at an after dinner speech to the Electrical Contractors' Association on Wednesday evening, and reported in Friday's Sun. The paper said the Labour mayoral candidate was criticising the finance sector's failure to contribute to securing Britain's future at the time.

The British Bankers' Association hit back at the mayoral candidate's latest broadside against the industry. Chief executive Angela Knight said: "Continual demonisation of the entire banking industry – which employs around half a million ordinary, hardworking people in the UK and over 140,000 in London alone – is unhelpful and won't attract jobs and business to the UK.

"If Mr Livingstone intends to make London hostile to business – and if he is considering stringing up a fair proportion of his electorate – he is going the right way about it."

A spokesperson for Livingstone insisted it was simply a joke. Livingstone made his comments a week after stating in an interview that a gay banker would not be enticed to leave London to work in Dubai because he could "get his penis cut off", as he highlighted the English capital as a key financial centre.

In a similar vein, he told the Guardian in a recent interview that City workers favour London over other capital cities as a place to work because "young men want to go out on the pull and do a lot of cocaine, and they can't really do that easily in Frankfurt".

The mayor also stood by comments made in an interview with the New Statesman that the Conservative party had been "riddled" with gay people. He explained that he had been trying to explain the progress in Conservative party circles in recent years on the issue of homosexuality.