Ken Livingstone seems to be dragging out the whole "concentration camp guard / German war criminal" jibe debacle, by obtaining from a a High Court Judge, a temporary stay of his 4 week suspension as Mayor of London which was due to start tomorrow, March 1st 2006, until his appeal is heard in the High Court, sometime in the future.
Those people who are repeating the propaganda about "unelected tribunals" versus "democratically elected politicians" need to be reminded that High Court Judges are not elected, but are appointed, for good reasons. There do not seem to be any complaints about "unelected High Court Judges" from Ken Livingstone when they grant him something which he wants.
It seems that this suspension of the Mayor of London will be on full pay, but that the legal costs, claimed to be £80,000 for the Adjudication Panel tribunal will have to be borne by Ken.
Any award of legal costs in the High Court is up to the Judge, who may or may not award them to Ken, win or lose.
When you are in a hole, stop digging.
According to The Guardian and others:
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, which pursued the complaint against Mr Livingstone after members of the London assembly had already censured him, represented only a "small section of the [Jewish] community," he said. A higher proportion of Jewish Londoners had given him their first preference vote in the 2004 mayoral election than had Londoners as a whole.
It is inconceivable that any of the people who voted for Ken Livingstone in 2004 then expected him to be makling the comments which he did in 2005.
How many of those people would still support him now, if he resigned and stood for re-election now ?
