Ken and Mohammed’s nasty little habit

In 1981, Ken Livingstone, then leader of the Greater London Council, and already a master of gesture politics, turned down an invitation to the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer and the Prince of Wales. Mohamed Fayed, known at the time as an establishment-courting Egyptian former soft drinks salesman, would have given anything for such an invitation. Yet these two self-described 'outsiders' have more in common than meets the eye.

Today, on opposite sides of town, they are engaged in strikingly similar enterprises intended to prove that they are the victims of racist conspiracies. At the inquest into the deaths of Diana and his son, Dodi, yesterday, Fayed lengthily expounded his theory that the pair were murdered by British intelligence on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh.

At the core of the plot, he said, was the Royal Family's dread of Diana marrying an

Egyptian Muslim.

Ken's difficulty is of similar hue. The Mayor of London's close aide and personal 'race advisor' Lee Jasper is at the centre of allegations that large amounts of public money, distributed by the London Development Agency to black-run organisations in the capital, has disappeared. Livingstone describes the claims - first made in the London Evening Standard - as "a racist smear campaign".

It is a tactic of proven effectiveness. Playing the race card in times of trouble has worked wonders for OJ Simpson, Michael Jackson and Naomi Campbell. Fayed has been dealing it up for years: "I have four British kids, I pay British taxes, give millions to charity," he fumes, "and they still treat me like a wog."

Ken and his cronies are equally adept at playing it - although the novelty may be wearing off. "Lee Jasper represents the old school of black politics," says Shaun Bailey, the black Conservative candidate for Hammersmith's parliamentary seat. "He's played the race card too often. The game has moved on."