Livingstone loses his marbles

Our beloved Mayor Ken Livingstone has always been a little out of touch with reality, but his latest outburst plumbs new depths. As the scandal over his invitation to Sheikh Qaradawi continues, Ken is clearly getting fed up with the whole affair and has accused his critics of being under the influence of a "Zionist front organisation".

Ken Livingstone originally invited the cleric (who is banned from entering the United States because of his support for terrorism) to London last Summer. For anyone who professes to believe that Qaradawi is a "moderate", here is the full transcript of of an interview with him.

Unfortnately of Ken, it wasn't just terrorism that the cleric was accused of supporting but also wife beating and the killing of homosexuals. The Mayor, for long a supporter of gay rights (in the early 80s he used to wear a badge on his lapel: "gay, 16 okay") has found this criticism too much to take and has had to concoct a conspiracy theory to undermine his critics.

In a city as multicultural as London, do we really want a Mayor who is so desperate to woo one minority, he is willing to discriminate against all the others? How would we feel if we had a Mayor who made the buses run on time but invited Jean Marie Le Pen to London as guest of honour, would we still support him? I think not.

It's about time we woke up and realised that some leopards never change their spots. Ken Livingstone may no longer be the unreconstructed marxist he once was, but his extremist views have never waned. He defends his support many years back for IRA terrorism as "being ahead of his time", continues to be an anti-zionist, and and was famously quoted as saying: "I hate cars. If I ever get any powers again I’d ban the lot."

If Ken wants to mend fences with London's minorities, maybe he should invite Sheikh Qaradawi back...to officially open London's next Gay Pride march!