Boris Johnson, the ebullient editor of the Spectator and Tory MP for Henley, is at the centre of a Scotland Yard inquiry over an allegedly racist article by the columnist Taki which provoked death threats against a leading black lawyer.
The crown prosecution service is considering whether to press charges against the magazine over the piece, which was published last month and posted on the Spectator's website, despite Mr Johnson's admission that the article was "a terrible thing" which "should never have gone in".
Last night, the article, Thoughts on Thuggery, disappeared from the Spectator's online edition. A spokeswoman in Mr Johnson's office refused to say why it had been withdrawn seven weeks after it was first published. "It's gone, it's magic," she said.
But the move came too late for Peter Herbert, a part-time judge and member of the Metropolitan police authority, who complained about the column after it appeared in the January 11 edition. His complaints at the police authority's meeting last month were reported in the media.
Yesterday Mr Herbert told this month's meeting that he had since received more than 40 racist emails. Three were from this country, the rest from the US. Some of them contained death threats.
Mr Herbert told the Met's commissioner, Sir John Stevens, that it was "quite amazing" that the article was still on the magazine's website. He asked if there was "any possibility of pursuing a criminal prosecution against the editor, Boris Johnson, for aiding and abetting incitement of racist hate material on a website".
Sir John replied: "That is being investigated. I will keep the members informed." Scotland Yard confirmed later that a file had been sent to the crown prosecution service for a decision on whether Taki's uncompromising views had contravened section 19 of the Public Order Act.
If lawyers consider that Taki used threatening, insulting and abusive words likely to stir up racial hatred, then either he or Mr Johnson, as the editor, could be questioned and face charges.
Taki, the Greek playboy who once spent four months in prison for possession of cocaine, is not known as a voice of reason, and this particular column was a rant of the kind Spectator readers must have grown familiar. Written during a skiing holiday in Switzerland, it began: "It seems almost obscene to be sitting in bucolic Gstaad rubbing it in ... but boy, oh boy was Enoch - God rest his soul - ever right!"
He suggests who might be to blame for the shooting of two black teenager sisters in Birmingham and notes that "only a moron would not surmise that what politically correct newspapers refer to as 'disaffected young people' are black thugs, sons of black thugs and grandsons of black thugs".
Powell prophecy
West Indians, he continued, had been allowed to immigrate after the war and "multiply like flies". "The rivers of blood speech by Enoch was prophetic as well as true and look what the bullshitters of the time did to the great man."
The prime minister, Tony Blair, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and the home secretary, David Blunkett, are described as "bullshitters".
Mr Herbert, 45, reiterated yesterday that he considers the article offensive and said the emails he had received were "pretty serious and unpleasant stuff". "I regard the article and the fact it was on the website as incitement to racial hatred," he added.
Mr Johnson refused to take calls on the matter early yesterday afternoon when he was working at the magazine.
His office said Mr Johnson had not been questioned by the police and the magazine had not received a complaint from Mr Herbert.
Later the spokeswoman refused to say whether Mr Johnson had ordered the removal of the article from the website.
Apart from embarrassing the magazine, the police investigation will hardly be welcomed by Mr Johnson's colleagues at Conservative central office, who want the party to be regarded as inclusive rather than intolerant.
Asked about the inquiry after the MPA meeting, Ian Blair, the deputy commissioner of the Met, said: "There is an investigation into the publication of an article and whether it constitutes an offence or not under the laws of incitement to racial hatred.
"As a result of that it became clear that Peter Herbert received racist mail and that is being investigated. A lot of it appears to come from outside the UK."