As Ken Livingstone faces a two-day disciplinary hearing from Labour into his claim that Adolf Hitler was a Zionist ‘before he went mad and murdered six million Jews’, the former Mayor of London has submitted a 17-page defence of himself to Labour’s National Constitutional Committee. In the hefty document, he describes the accusations against him as ‘essentially a political charge’ owing to his support for both Jeremy Corbyn and Palestinian human rights.
While Livingstone’s claim that he’s victim of a ‘political plot’ has led to some ridicule, it’s another aspect of the document’s contents that’s troubling Mr S. In the citations section, the Labour politician lists evidence for his various claims. On one such footnote, he cites ‘Israel and the Apartheid analogy’ from… Wikipedia:
The open source encyclopaedia is an often frowned upon information source thanks to the fact that it can be contributed to by anyone who wants to post material — whether that person is an expert or someone who wants to spread misinformation.
Doesn’t Red Ken know the first rule of academia? ‘Never cite Wikipedia.’
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