I know exactly what to give up for the next few weeks to make me instantly virtuous. I’m taking the pledge on the lip-smacking, deliciously spiteful accounts that the papers have been so full of in recent days of Ken Livingstone’s uncouth outburst after a long-ago party and subsequent refusal to apologise. Columns spiced up with gloating references to Ken’s credentials as a right-on anti-racism campaigner turning to dust in his mouth? I’ll pass, thanks. By refusing to partake of this feast, or accept the official ruling that Ken’s yobbishness brought the Mayor of London’s office into disrepute, I’ll be doing my bit to defend free speech and democracy and sending Britain’s virtue-ometer up a notch.

Admittedly, Ken’s first line of defence was pretty thin. He claimed that because he had his coat on by the time he walked out the door of the City Hall party in question - and let rip at the innocent Evening Standard reporter outside who dared to ask him how the evening had gone, ranting back at the man (who is Jewish) that he was like a concentration camp guard and that Associated Newspapers were a bunch of baddies, before stomping crossly off into the night - that he was somehow off duty and not really Mayor any more until morning.

But he’s hit the nail on the head now that he’s considering an appeal against the ruling. Since being suspended from his job for a month by the obscure panel appointed by the Lord Chancellor, which decided he had brought the office of Mayor into disrepute, Ken has come up with the much more sensible argument that, because he was elected by millions of Londoners to do his job, it’s not the place of a legal agency no one has ever heard of to rule on whether he can do it.

Quite right too. I can’t for the life of me see how this incident damages the reputation of his office, or how suspending Ken for most of Lent, like a naughty schoolboy sent to stand in the corner, will restore the good reputation of that office.

All this absurd punishment will do, if it takes effect, is to make it hard for London’s government to work in those weeks (his deputy can’t take on all his powers) and guarantee that the orgy of prurient, punitive, intrusive newspaper coverage continues. Oh, and also weaken the simple, direct relationship between the electorate and their chosen representatives on which British political life is supposed to be based.

The Mayor’s mouthing off so childishly marks him, personally, as an embarrassing plonker of the type you’d edge away from if they started propping up the bar next to you and trying to share their views with you. It brings him, personally, into disrepute. It makes him less electable next time round.

That’s the whole frivolous charm of democracy, surely. You stop fancying someone in power, whether because their policies no longer seem as clever as they once did or they make a fool of themselves every time they open their mouths or just because you stop liking the cut of their jib, and you put your X in a different box. Hey presto. They’re out. It’s that simple.

I voted for Ken when he resurfaced as a possible leader for London - at least partly out of mischief, for the sheer pleasure of being able to watch his gadfly effect on the Labour Party machinery. He’s done good things since, mostly the congestion charge.
However, it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll vote for him again. Partly this will be because I might be looking for someone who doesn’t have unpleasant altercations late at night, whether with reporters or girlfriends or whoever. Partly, too, because I’m a voter and it’s my right to be capricious.

But the last thing I need while making this sort of decision is a panel of busybodies appointed by Charlie Falconer sticking their noses in to help me decide what I think. If, by the time Easter comes round and I go back to poring over the Ken stories, I find that the Adjudication Panel for England, whatever it is, has managed to make a martyr out of the Mayor, it might be exactly the nudge I need to exercise my voter’s right to be capricious again – and throw my support behind him .

E-mail Urban Fox here

I have no sympathy for him at all. A convicted drug dealer breaks the conditions of his parole. End of story. John Tuohy

Many thanks Urban Fox - an excellent reminder about the world's worst weapon of mass destruction - aka double standards. Well done! LM

I agree that certain jokes are carried too far and that people consider them as just jokes but they are not. There is seriousness in saying the world is round after proving this and saying that London is the centre of the World by manipulating the atlas. All are not fools. Timesonline should be given credit for fighting against this joker. Thank you. Firozali A. Mulla, Dar-Es-Salaam

I agree with your story but would like to point out a different issue. I do feel sorry for the poor lad, but why wasn't Mr Khayam arrested on the spot or even searched or shot if that's the way the police had promised to deal with suicide bombers? Why can the police shoot a innocent man on a tube, wearing a outfit clearly nothing in resemblance to a suicide bomber, yet let someone who clearly looks like a suicide bomber escape so blatantly? How can the police miss someone who travels on a train so obviously looking like a bomber. I say the police are a joke. They stop and check people with back packs yet they did not even stop and search him. Are the trains and London really safe? I don't really think so. I won't be travelling back there in a hurry. Aneeka Iqbal