John Mann chased Mr Livingstone up the stairs at the BBC's offices in Millbank, shouting and calling him a "f****** disgrace".
In an extraordinary outburst of venom, questionable language and clearly stage managed indignation, John Mann “confronts” Ken Livingstone in the street and on the stairway of the BBC's offices in Millbank. It is perhaps by coincidence that the witnesses to this verbal assault were, apart from the passing public, cameramen, reporters and hacks from the Mail, Telegraph, Independent and all the usual suspects from the television media and newspapers, eager to grasp any opportunity to attack and discredit the Labour party no matter how tenuous the link may be. The allegation is already doing the rounds that this whole altercation was no more than an opportunistic stunt engineered for the invited audience by Mann for the purpose of advancing his admitted aim of undermining and ultimately removing the present leadership of the Labour party.
What is clearly evident is that during this “confrontation”, Mann excessively overplayed his hand with his almost hysterical rantings, shouting down any response that Livingstone may have chosen to make, which is typical of the “Bully boy” tactics frequently employed by the member for Bassetlaw, known for his Blairite position within the Parliamentary Labour Party and who was part of the campaign challenging the legitimacy of the party leadership election and the alleged “plot” to remove Jeremy Corbyn in the event that he became party leader.
How strange it is then that the Labour Party should take a decision to suspend Livingstone pending an investigation, on the grounds of, “bringing the party into disrepute”.
The sight and sounds of an elected MP engaging in an almost demented verbal assault on another member of the Labour Party in public and in front of an assembled audience of press and media, may be argued to also bring the party into disrepute.
Mann should also be suspended “pending an investigation”, but apart from a brief conversation with a party “whip”, nothing appears to have happened.
An apparent case of double standards where one set of rule applies to John Mann and another set applies to everyone else.
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