The Guardian reports that Ken Livingstone has started his litigation in the High Court to try to discredit the Standards Board for England and its Adjudication Panel's ruling that he should be suspended from the Office of Mayor of London for a month.
Another Guardian report seems to imply that the Judge is sympathetic to Livingstone's case:
Mr Justice Collins also said he sympathised with the politician for doubting the good faith of the Evening Standard, the newspaper for which the reporter, Oliver Finegold, worked. The judge said: "I don't want anyone to suggest Mr Livingstone is anti-semitic. There has never been any indication of that. That is absolutely clear. No one can think he was making a remark like that because of anti-semitism."
However, this is pretty well exactly what the Adjudication Panel judgement said in the first place !
Livingstone was suspended for bring the Office of Mayor of London into disrepute, by not apologising,, and not for "racism", even though everyone accepts that his remarks to the Jewish reporter were offensive.
For all his weasel words about principles, he is not complaining and taking legal action over the decision by the STandards Board for England which ruled in his favour, when, incredibly, they accepted his unconvincing plea of ignorance, regarding his "get back to Iran" remarks to two property developers.
Not a single penny of London taxpayers' money should be wasted on this pointless vanity litigation.
If Ken Livingstone had apologised in public last February, this affair would , by now have been forgotten. Even supporters of his policies must be embarassed by his behavior, which reeks of the arrogance of power.
