THE BRITISH INQUISITION

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who put the ‘loony’ into ‘loony left’ in the 1980s, now finds himself in a spot of bother with the British Inquisition stemming from some crass remarks he made to a Jewish reporter, Oliver Finegold, whom he compared to ‘a concentration camp guard’, after first asking if he was a ‘German war criminal’.

The exchange occurred after a party for a gay politician last year.

The comments created a brouhaha, and Mr Livingstone refused to apologise. Instead, he accused The Daily Mail, a sister paper to the one Mr Finegold works for, The Evening Standard, of having supported the Nazis in the 1930s.

Mr Livingstone has previously acted as a freelance restaurant critic for The Evening Standard.

This led to a complaint by a Jewish group to a quango called the Adjudication Panel for England, which is supposed to adjudicate on the conduct of members of local authorities. A 3 member disciplinary committee of the quango unanimously ruled that Mr Livingstone had brought the office of mayor into disrepute and suspended him from office for a period of one month.

The disciplinary committee accused him of being ‘unnecessarily insensitive and offensive’.

However, Mr Livingstone made a High Court application and has had his suspension stayed pending an appeal.

Mr Livingstone’s legal team are claiming that the suspension has breached his human rights to a private life, and his right to freedom of expression.

In a democracy, except where there is gross misconduct or criminal activity, an elected politician is answerable to the electorate - and not to a series of quangos, judges, or so-called human rights activists.

The voters of London voted for Mr Livingstone in full knowledge of who he is.

It was only in 2004 that Mr Livingstone invited Yusuf al-Qaradawi to a conference at the City Hall in London, despite the fact that Mr al-Qaradawi supports suicide bombings, which he has described as ‘martyrdom operations’.

This episode is the latest in a line of embarrassing gaffs from Labour and its supporters, involving the British Inquisition. Sir Ian Blair has run into trouble over the shooting of the Brazilian Jean Menezes [see English Rights Campaign item dated the 22 August 2005], Sir Iqbal Sacranie regarding comments he made about homosexuality, and even Tony Blair himself relating to an allegation that there might be an allegation that he had used the term ‘fucking Welsh’ [see English Rights Campaign item dated the 2 October 2005].

It might, of course, serve them right. But we cannot allow Labour and the British Inquisition to continue to undermine our democratic freedoms. Those freedoms have been eroded too much already.