Talk radio station LBC has been challenged by a Channel 4 News anchor to axe Ken Livingstone as one of its presenters following the comments which led to his suspension from the Labour party.
The former London mayor told reporters outside his home on Friday that they would have to tune in to him on the radio station on Saturday if they wanted to hear a further response by him to the furore surrounding his remarks.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy later tweeted:
Livingstone says no more on Hitler until his radio show. Is LBC entirely comfortable paying him as a presenter after what he said yesterday?
— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) April 29, 2016
However, LBC said that Livingstone was not due to be presenting his show on Saturday anyway, adding that he was “taking a break” because of broadcasting rules governing the role which participants in the EU referendum and local elections could play.
His slot – alongside former Tory MP David Mellor – is currently being filled by the Channel 4 News journalist Michael Crick: one of Livingstone’s principal interrogators as the row blew up on Thursday.
The broadcasting watchdog Ofcom has said that an editorial decision taken by LBC was the reason why Livingstone was not currently in his presenting slot on the national talk show and that there was no regulatory bar to him continuing as a presenter.
A spokesperson said: “It is for broadcasters to decide which presenters they choose to use. Ofcom is a post-transmission regulator and does not check or approve broadcasters’ decisions before broadcast. It is up to broadcasters to interpret and follow our rules.”
An LBC spokesperson said later: “This decision was based on Ofcom Rule 6.6 which states that ‘representatives of permitted participants’ cannot present during the election/referendum period, which started on 15th April. Ken Livingstone meets the definition of a ‘representative of permitted participants’, so he is taking a break from co-presenting his LBC show during this time.”
When others on Twitter pointed out to Guru-Murthy that LBC had given a show to newspaper columnist Katie Hopkins, he agreed that that was a “good point”.
When Hopkins appeared as a guest presenter on the station a year ago she found herself under fire from listeners over a Sun column in which she compared migrants to cockroaches.
