Mayor's amazing outburst

Ken Livingstone today left Labour chiefs aghast by declaring he longs to see the Saudi royal family "swinging from the lamp-posts".

In an extraordinary interview while riding round London on a double-decker bus, the Mayor risked uproar with a stream of unscripted outbursts. He said Israeli leader Ariel Sharon should be thrown into jail, scorned President George Bush as ignorant of world affairs and announced that Gordon Brown should put up the top rate of income tax to 50 per cent.

Mr Livingstone's comments are certain to embarrass Tony Blair, who flies to Washington next week for talks with the US president. They also send a clear signal the Mayor has every intention of continuing to speak his mind on any subject, in defiance of those who thought his readmission to the Labour Party would see him go "on-message".

On the Saudis, he revealed: "I just long for the day I wake up and find that the Saudi royal family are swinging from lamp-posts and that they've got a proper government that represents the people of Saudi Arabia."

Chancellor Gordon Brown, who opposed Mr Livingstone's readmission to Labour, will be furious to learn the Mayor has revived his demands for higher tax on upper earners. "I've argued for years that there should be a 50 per cent rate of tax on all earnings over £100,000," the Mayor declared.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister will be hoping that a stray copy of the interview does not reach President Bush before their White House lunch next Friday. Mr Livingstone confides: "I'm not even sure he [Mr Bush] was aware there were any Palestinians before he was elected, anymore than he knew the name of the president of Pakistan."

He praised Mr Blair's Government for promoting gay ministers, saying: "If you come out it almost guarantees you a junior ministerial post. Its wonderful." Despite his differences with Mr Blair - and his remark that anyone who could not find things to disagree with New Labour about "might as well be dead" - he insists he and the Prime Minister enjoy cordial relations.

"He's not going to make me foreign secretary and I'm not going to persuade him to dump George Bush," he said. "We work together on things we agree about and accept there are going to be things we don't agree about."

Mr Livingstone had to pass a loyalty test in January before Labour chiefs would agree to tear up his five-year expulsion for standing against Frank Dobson as an independent. He will now become official candidate when he fights for a second term in June.

His latest remarks in The Guardian suggest he has no intention of curbing his more colourful views. The newspaper said his own press aides tried to cut short the interview when he started speaking out of turn, but were ignored.

Mr Livingstone annoyed Mr Blair last year by describing Mr Bush as the "most dangerous man on the planet" and holding a party for anti-war protesters. But the Prime Minister strongly backed his readmission to Labour, despite a campaign by Mr Brown and other ministers, after being warned that Labour would come a poor third in June without him.