Mr Livingstone regrets...

I'm quite relieved that Ken Livingstone has said that:

"There will be... no apology or expression of regret to the Daily Mail Group."
He added: "To the Daily Mail group, no-one in Britain is less qualified to complain about anti-Semitism.
"In truth, those papers were the leading advocate of anti-Semitism in the country for half a century."

'Hatred and fear'

He said that while it is true the Daily Mail has moved on from anti-Semitism, it now targets asylum seekers and Muslims.
"For the Mail group the victims may change but the intolerance, hatred and fear pervade every issue of the papers," Mr Livingstone said.
He added that over the past two weeks his "main concern" was for many Jewish Londoners, and regretted if his comments "may have been seen to downplay the horror and magnitude of the Holocaust".

Needless to say, the Chief Rabbi, that paragon of integrity, has weighed in with:

"He [Livingstone] knows that Holocaust survivors were deeply wounded by his remarks.

"He may not have intended this, but that was the effect of his words, and therefore he must accept responsibility.

'Pain still there'

"His failure to offer an unequivocal apology is both regrettable and damages the stature of his office." [But surely no more than the Chief rabbi has done to his].

And, not to be outdone:

Karen Pollock, of the Holocaust Educational Trust [aka the censors of Perdition], said it was an opportunity for the mayor "to say sorry and say he regretted the offence and upset he caused to Holocaust survivors and to the Jewish community".

"He failed to do that today, and therefore the upset is still there and the pain is still there."