No case for the CRE

Just when you thought the campaign against Ken Livingstone could stoop no lower, the Commission for Racial Equality is now on the case to assess whether the Greater London Authority can comply with the Race Relations Act.

In a surprise move, the CRE called on the Standards Board for England to consider whether the mayor's behaviour compromised the ability of the Greater London Authority, which he heads, to comply with the Race Relations Act.

It is the second referral to the standards board in the past week. On Monday, the Board of Deputies of British Jews called on the watchdog to hold a full inquiry.

The CRE's intervention will dismay the mayor, who insists his comments were not anti-semitic and who highlights his record of anti-racist activity.

It won't just dismay the Mayor. The leader of the GLA's Tory group can loftily accuse him of anti-semitism because he allowed a write-up of a Palestinian trade fair in The Londoner newspaper and the CRE hasn't seen fit to investigate the Tories. It goes back to what Polly Toynbee had to say on this: "the plot has been lost".