Welcome Ken, to the gulag you helped create

This past week has been something of an epiphany for the politically correct. The Commission for Racial Equality ("We work for a fair and just society which values diversity") took time from its ethnic monitoring scheme ("collect, store and analyse data about people's ethnic backgrounds to highlight possible inequalities") and asked the Standards Board (investigating those "failing to treat people with respect") to look into the behaviour of Ken Livingstone.

This sequence of events originated at a very p.c. party celebrating the anniversary of the coming out of Chris Smith, Britain's first openly gay Member of Parliament. The Mayor of London called a journalist pestering him a "German war criminal". On learning that the reporter was Jewish he amended his description to a "concentration camp guard". The reporter appears to have reacted badly, giving an oppportunity to the Federation for Community Development Learning ("support and work with diverse, marginalised and excluded communities") to comfort the fragile scribe and put Ken to rights – if the FCDL is not too busy with its "Being White" anti-racist project.

Schadenfreude at Ken Livingstone's current plight is inevitable. This network of inquisitors turning their sights on him is one he zealously helped build. Those heady GLC days, with grants to fringe pressure groups and an endless stream of bilge about racism and the need for more affirmative action, had consequences. Now the biter is being bitten. Even the gay rights group OutRage! has deserted him on grounds that Livingstone's "sensationalist rhetoric cheapens the experience of Jews, gays, the disabled, Roma, black people, Communists and others who were persecuted by the Nazis".

As ever with Mr Livingstone, it's hard to get facts. Apparently, Livingstone made the unfortunate comments to a reporter from the Evening Standard who was buzzing about him. Livingstone feels he has been the target of an Associated Newspapers hate campaign (not a pleasant thing, even in its mildest form, I can tell you) and told the fellow to buzz off. The journalist felt he was only doing his job, to which the mayor's comeback was that flat cliché about "following orders" just like a "concentration camp guard".

This is a remark made by every second person on every second occasion. The words themselves cannot possibly be objectionable, so the fuss must be because the reporter was Jewish. One finds it hard to believe that any journalist, even a Jewish one from the Evening Standard, would suffer from that degree of vulnerability. Though if you look at it another way, the reporter, Oliver Finegold, has done a brilliant job. A drop-dead boring assignment has become the teapot tempest of the year.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews has demanded an apology. Tony Blair wants one. But why should Livingstone apologise? One explanation offered is that without an apology, London's chances of getting the Olympic Games will suffer. Putting aside any view that this is devoutly to be wished, I can't see how the International Olympic Committee could be anything but impressed by Ken's outburst. Given the politics of the IOC, the adamant refusal to apologise to a Jew can only be beneficial.

Writing in The Telegraph, Boris Johnson speculated that the Prime Minister wants to get the Jewish vote. Any apology would only get the stupid Jewish vote, which anti-Semites would claim is not a large number anyway because Jews are supposed to be clever (as in "I got myself a Jewish solicitor"). Saying "sorry" was called "practising self-criticism" under Communism, a procedure which China brought to a fine art, complete with dunces' caps. At regular intervals it behoved a good follower of Mao to stand up and denounce his own failings in the humiliating equivalent of Catholic confession.

Our quasi-theocratic society practises the faith of inclusiveness. From time to time, the powers that be declare some sort of behaviour or utterance to be offensive to someone who has minority status. Anyone breaking these taboos must then purge themselves in a ritual of self-abasement.

People with minority status perform the same function in a society of inclusiveness as India's sacred cows or the sacred deer in Nara, Japan. They can bite you in the midriff but you can't hit them on the nose. If they lie in front of a bus, the vehicle must wait until they get up and go away before driving on. The Jews belong to this important species only on special occasions. Remarks about them are offensive when made in a politically incorrect context. When made in the politically correct context of the Middle East, Ken or anyone else can be as anti-Semitic as they like.

"I could apologise but why should I say words I do not believe in my heart?" Mr Livingstone has said. An excellent question to be addressed to anyone of the tribunals above. As Herr Hitler said, quoting Schiller in the Reichstag when the Social Democrats protested against his measures outlawing free speech after they themselves had outlawed Hitler's when in power: "Late you come but still you come." Welcome, Ken, to the gulag you helped create.