Ken Livingstone goes on TV to defend Keith Vaz over the rent boy sex scandal – and ends up talking about Hitler

KEN Livingstone appeared on television this morning to have his say about the Keith Vaz male escort allegations – and it went horribly wrong.

The veteran left-winger is currently suspended by the Labour Party, following a row where he was accused of anti-Semitism and making offensive comments about Hitler supporting Zionism.

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Back then he was trying to defend the Bradford MP Naz Shah and this time he seemed to think he would help Vaz’s case.

On the Victoria Derbyshire on BBC Two this morning he was characteristically combative and ended up speaking about Hitler.

He said: “The simple fact is I have so much evidence that what I was saying is true.

“Particularly striking, if you go to the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, one of the pamphlets they sell to tourists is about the deal that Hitler did with the Zionists in the 1930s.”

Livingstone is one of the only high-profile Labour figures that has come out in support of Vaz.

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He said what he did in private was up to him adding: “I think someone’s private life should be private.”

Insisting that the story about Vaz sleeping with two male escorts was as yet unproven he told Victoria Derbyshire he could spent the next half an hour recounting to her all the stories about him in the press that have turned out to be untrue.

And he said even if it was true it was wrong to condemn someone like Vaz for a single “mistake”.

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He added: “The simple fact is, don’t judge somebody on one mistake they make in their life, or even a couple of mistakes.

“It’s the total that he’s done for other people, in his own constituency and up and down Britain.

“He’s always been on the side of justice. And that can’t just be swept away by one mistake that he has made.”

Livingstone then accused journalists of hypocrisy, saying he had seen political correspondents at party conferences picking up prostitutes.