'This brings shame on you, Ken'

I have seen some pretty slippery politicians at work during my time. But watching Ken Livingstone deliver his statement at City Hall today, I do not think I ever seen such a loathsome, fundamentally dishonest set of evasions and half-truths. From the very moment he opened his mouth and started talking about the Daily Mail group I knew that his statement was going to be all smokescreen and blather, with not an ounce of contrition or apology. It is a matter of fact that the Evening Standard is owned by Associated Newspapers, which also publishes the Daily Mail. But when Oliver Finegold approached Mr Livingstone that night after Chris Smith's party, he was not working for "the Daily Mail group", as Mr Livingstone put it. He did not go up and say, "Hello, Mr Livingstone, Daily Mail group."

So why did Mr Livingstone repeatedly use the phrase in today's statement, rather than talking about the Evening Standard?

Answer: because he thinks it plays better with his supporters, many of whom disagree with the politics of the Daily Mail while having no argument with the Standard. Half-truth number one.

Then Mr Livingstone moved on to Oliver Finegold. "That you are paid by the Daily Mail group to do the job that you do is not a defence for your behaviour," he said. "Pursuing me along the pavement, thrusting your tape recorder at me while repeatedly barking the same question when I clearly indicated that I did not want to be interviewed by you is not acceptable behaviour by you or any other journalist."

What fraudulent, self-serving claptrap. Oliver Finegold - a straight, decent journalist, not an attack dog - was not pursuing Mr Livingstone. He was merely walking alongside him because Mr Livingstone had continued walking after being asked a question, a habit which is all too common among politicians.

I have lost track of the number of times I have seen the Mayor answer questions from camera crews and the like jogging alongside him without breaking his stride.

I was going to call this half-truth number two, but in reality the suggestion that Mr Finegold was in any way harassing Mr Livingstone is closer to an outright LIE.

On and on it went - the pained, self-righteous outrage. And the more I heard, the less I could bear to listen. I have never felt so let down by an elected politician. I used to have some qualified admiration for Ken Livingstone. I supported him during the GLC days, and voted for him for Mayor. I supported the introduction of the congestion charge. But after today's performance, when he paid scant regard for the truth and used every cheap trick in the book to traduce my colleagues and my newspaper, never again.

I have worked for the Evening Standard for 18 years. I do not feel like a concentration camp guard. I do a job which, for much of the time, is of genuine public service. And none of Mr Livingstone's bilious untruths is going to change that.

Listen to the rubbish he came up with today. Why did the Standard - sorry, the Daily Mail group - send someone to stand outside the party and photograph people leaving? Listening to Mr Livingstone, it all sounds like a sinister homophobic conspiracy.

Nothing could be further from the truth - but then, Mr Livingstone is not really interested in the truth. Mr Finegold was sent to do an ordinary, workaday-piece about the party, about the only event of any significance happening on the London scene that night. And, yes, the photographer did take a picture of anyone famous leaving the event: that is how you cover parties.

Gay-bashing? This is not the early Eighties, Mr Mayor. No one does gaybashing in the papers any more. Move on - or is it that you are so hidebound you are only capable of fighting the battles of 20 years ago?

Even when he was asking a question - albeit a rhetorical one - Mr Livingstone struggled to stick to the truth. "What," he asked, "was the motive of the Mail group in whipping up this media fire storm?"

An interesting question - if the "Daily Mail group" had whipped it up. But they did not. When Mr Finegold came back to the office and told of his shameful treatment at the hands of the Mayor, the Evening Standard decided not to run the story.

It had no reason to pick an unnecessary fight with Mr Livingstone. But the story got out, as these things do. Journalists talk to each other, they have friends on other papers - and the story was run first on the Guardian's media website, from where it was picked up by the BBC and various newspapers, including the Times and Independent.

Why? Because the remarks were shocking - and because large numbers of Jews were genuinely outraged. No media firestorm, but an honest reflection of how many people felt about the Mayor's remarks.

In all his hundreds of words of self-justification, all aimed at heaping bile and venom on "the Daily Mail group", Mr Livingstone has never once touched on the real issue at the heart of this row. It is not about racism, or anti-Semitism, or what the Daily Mail published in the Thirties (if it was, presumably he would never have been a restaurant critic for "the Daily Mail group").

He almost got there today when he said: "I refer to the Holocaust because it is the most extreme example of evil in my own array of moral reference points." Yes, Mr Livingstone, it is.

And that is why it was so inappropriate to use it as a weapon against a regular, working journalist not just "doing his job" but doing a perfectly decent, honest job, one without shame or malice or hatred.

By calling him a war criminal you demeaned yourself, you belittled the suffering of the Jews and turned the Holocaust into nothing better than a cheap vehicle for your caustic wit.

But by refusing to apologise, you have brought untold shame on yourself.