"Suicide Bomb Backer Runs Ken's Campaign"

So ran the front page of Wednesday's Evening Standard this week in an article which revealed that 200,000 Muslims across London have been targeted by the "Muslims4Ken" campaign, assisted by a Mr Azzam Tamimi. 

Such a targeted campaign is politics at its most cynical, exploitative and dangerous. Serious research shows that the radicalisation of young Muslims begins with cultural and religious segregation encouraged by the type of extremists Ken Livingstone has welcomed to London, and by the likes of Mr Tamimi. 

The brazenness of such a campaign is all the more galling in the wake of Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland's love letter to Livingstone in last week's Jewish Chronicle. He believes that Jewish voters should vote for Ken Livingstone regardless of his choice of friends, because Ken runs London efficiently. You are wrong on both counts Mr Freedland, NO voter should support Mr Livingstone if they care about London. Violent crime is up, pollution is up, transport fares are up and the Mayor's tax is UP. It is time to bring this Mayor down. 

It is important for us to remember that the radicalisation of certain members of the Muslim community has had fatal consequences. No flirtation with those who propound such views should be treated lightly. I want to be safe in London, not just from rising crime (which Mr Livingstone shrugs off as lightly as Lee Jasper's investigation) but from terrorism. That should be a priority for ALL voters.

Livingstone is the Mayor who hugged Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim cleric who justifies attacks on non-Muslims and condemns women and gays. He is the Mayor who told the Reuben brothers to go back where they came from and who offended a Jewish reporter by comparing him to a concentration camp guard.

Astonishingly, Freedland acknowledges these facts. However, as he is so quick to dismiss them, let's remind him of a few more: Livingstone is also the Mayor who has courted Hugo Chavez in Venezuela where the human rights record is appalling, he is the Mayor who has bred a culture of cronyism at City Hall and he is the Mayor who has wasted £2.8 million of public money in this financial year alone, bankrolling that pointless exercise in self-promotion, the Londoner.

AA Gill has described the post of Mayor of London as the best job in British politics yet Livingstone has disrespected this office again and again and again. He takes its name in vain, just as his extremist cronies take in vain the name of decent Muslims across this city.

I do agree with one thing Freedland wrote: we should choose the new Mayor on the grounds of what he will do for London as a whole. Ken Livingstone's time is up.