Mayor to face board again after US jibe

2:26pm Tuesday 28th March 2006

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Mayor Ken Livingstone faces yet another official complaint after he compared the US ambassador to a "chiselling little crook" in a congestion charge row.

The mayor attacked the ambassador in a television interview over the embassy's refusal to pay the £8-a-day toll for its diplomatic cars.

Today Mr Livingstone was reported to the Standards Board of England.

Last month a panel of the same local government watchdog suspended the mayor for a month for comparing a Jewish journalist to a Nazi war criminal.

Only a last-minute order by the High Court froze the suspension while the mayor's appeal is heard.

Tax or service?

In the latest row, Mr Livingstone vowed yesterday to take the US embassy to court.

"It would actually be quite nice if the American ambassador in Britain could pay the charge that everybody else is paying and not actually try and skive out of it like a chiselling little crook," he told ITV News.

Since July last year, envoys have racked up fines of as much as £150 a car a day for entering the congestion charging zone without paying the toll. The total bill could be tens of thousands of pounds.

The US argues the charge is a tax, from which diplomats are exempt under the 1961 Vienna Convention.

But the mayor insisted it is a service fee, not a tax, and vowed to take the embassy to court.

"When British troops are putting their lives on the line for American foreign policy, it would be quite nice if they paid the congestion charge," he said earlier.

"We will find a way of getting them into court either here or in America."

The embassy said it stopped paying the charge after more than a year of negotiation. "This is a tax, plain and clearly," said Rick Roberts, minister council for public affairs.

"We don't tax British diplomats in Washington. We don't expect to be taxed here."

He said the ambassador, Robert Tuttle, had nothing to do with the decision. It was made before he was even confirmed.

The London Assembly Conservatives pointed out that 55 embassies refuse to pay the congestion charge.

"We do not agree with any embassies avoiding the charge, but that's no reason for this kind of abusive language," said the Tory Bob Neill.

"Livingstone's increasing odd behaviour debases the mayoralty and undermines London as a major world city."

'Disrespect'

The mayor was reported to the Standards Board by Liberty and Law, a civil liberties group.

The organisation believes the mayor breached the Greater London Authority's code of conduct. He treated the ambassador with disrespect and brought his office into disrepute, the group alleged.

At the Nazi jibe hearing the mayor faced the same charges. The three-man adjudication panel upheld the disrepute allegation, but dropped the disrespect charge. It found Mr Livingstone was off duty when he insulted Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold whilst leaving a party at City Hall.

But this time the mayor was on duty when he made the gaff against the ambassador.

The Standards Board will now decide whether to refer the new case to its adjudication panel. If it chooses to do so, Mr Livingstone will again face a disciplinary hearing.

As before, he could be banned from office for up to five years. He can also be told to apologise, go for training, be censured or suspended.