Ken Livingstone’s one-month suspension from his position as Mayor of London has received wide attention in the German-speaking world. The German position has been mainly unfriendly towards the unapologetic leader.

Particularly Die Welt has taken on a conservative bent, suggesting that Livingstone should use his month to think about whether his popularity with the people of London is causing him to transgress society’s agreed norms.

In Britain meanwhile the standard attitude is to relish Livingstone’s cantankerous blustering, and in particular to admire his refusal to apologise for comparing a reporter to a concentration camp guard. The Standards Board for England’s decision is seen as a bureaucratic over-reaction.

The German papers show little sympathy with Red Ken and his anti-pc and anti-liberal position, and pay little attention to his argument that the decision represents an attack on democracy.

Funny, eh?