Sticks and Stones …

3.17 Sticks and Stones …

Cases: 4.4 Do you recall the childhood saying that “sticks and stones may break my bones,

but words will never hurt me”? Surely you do. It is often used as a defense against unwanted name calling and taunting. But words, of course, can be hurtful. Consider Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, who uttered a few words in February 2005 that landed him a thirty-day suspension from office. Mayor Livingstone, in response to sharp questioning by The Evening Standard reporter, asked him what

he did before he worked for the newspaper. “Were you a German war criminal?” the reporter, whose name is Oliver Finegold, replied, “No, I’m Jewish. I wasn’t a German war criminal.” The Mayor retorted, “Well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard. You’re just doing it ’cause you’re paid to, aren’t you?”

Th ree days later, the Board of Deputies of British Jews filed a complaint with the Standards Board of England setting in motion an investigation of whether the

Professionalism and Ethics ◾ 73

mayor had breached the code of conduct of the Greater London Authority. The Standards Board was formally established in 2001 by the Local Government Act of 2000. The Standards Board’s main task is to ensure that standards of ethical

conduct are maintained across local government authorities and to deal with com- plaints of misconduct against individual members.

After a year-long investigation that cost British taxpayers more than $83,000, the findings were handed over to the independent, nonelected Adjudication Panel for England that ruled the mayor had broken the Local Government Code of Conduct. The chairman of the panel said that the mayor “does seem to have failed, from the outset of this case, to have appreciated that his conduct was unacceptable, was a breach of the code and did damage to the reputation of his office” (New York Times,

February 25, 2006). The mayor’s four-week suspension was to begin on March 1, 2006, but was postponed pending an appeal for judicial review of the panel’s deci- sion. The H igh Court of Justice heard the appeal and overturned the suspension.

Discussion Questions

1. Are “words” sufficient to call into question an elected official’s ethics?

2. Should a nonelected body have the authority to remove an elected official who has not committed a crime but may have behaved in a manner that “brought disrepute to his or her office”?

3. Are the ethics of local elected officials in Great Britain different than their counterparts in the United States?

Commentary

LaKeshia Wood, ASPA member and University of Baltimore student:

Are the ethics of local elected officials in Great Britain different than their counterparts in the United States? My answer is no indeed.

I am a graduate student studying for my master’s degree in pub- lic administration, and I have been hearing story lines constantly on certain elected officials who have disregarded the concept of ethical behavior by portraying rude and disrespectful behavior against groups of people, and yes, these people get hurt. Recently certain minorities have come to the media and expressed this hurt.

My concern is how can an elected official be of the public inter- est acting as a public servant and act so unethical. It should not be tolerated at all, and I am elated to see that the local government in London took measures immediately on the misconduct of the mayor, unlike some U.S. jurisdictions where officials are repeatedly acting unethically.

74 ◾ Ethics Moments in Government: Cases and Controversies

Information drawn from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/ 5410872.stm (accessed November 30, 2008).