04 October 2006
London's controversial mayor Ken Livingstone is launching a court challenge against an order suspending him from office for making a Nazi jibe to a Jewish reporter. He will go to court this morning with London's assembly still urging him to apologize, which he is refusing. A three-man panel unanimously found Livingstone guilty of being "unnecessarily insensitive and offensive'' in comparing the "Evening Standard" reporter Oliver Finegold to a Nazi concentration camp guard last year. The panel decided in February that the mayor was in breach of the Greater London Authority code of conduct and should be suspended for four weeks. The code states that a member must not in his official capacity, or in any other circumstance, conduct himself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing his office or authority into disrepute. Livingstone has described his suspension – frozen pending the outcome of Wednesday's judicial hearing – as 'inappropriate''. He said his remark had been '"blown out of all proportion'' and the panel's intervention had 'profound constitutional implications''.
