Ranting Kinnock invokes Hitler to smear Tories
NEIL KINNOCK is facing a political furore after comparing David Cameron’s Election tactics to Hitler’s infamous ‘big lie’ about the Jews.
In an incendiary speech, the former Opposition leader, one of Ed Miliband’s closest allies, accused the Prime Minister of telling a ‘great lie’ about Labour’s economic record.
It had ‘etched its way into the consciousness of the British people in tribute to the attributes of the great lie almost on a scale practised in Germany before the War’, said Lord Kinnock, 73.
He added: ‘I don’t compare Osborne, Cameron and Hague and the rest of them to those Nazi criminals’, but said the Tories had used ‘repeated lies, deceit and dangerous and ruinous untruths’ to brainwash voters into believing that ‘Labour caused the economic car crash’.
Nor was it Kinnock’s only reference to the two World Wars: he said that under the Tories, Britain’s balance of payments deficit was the worst it had been ‘since D-Day in 1944’.
The term the ‘big lie’ was coined by Hitler in his book Mein Kampf to smear the Jews by accusing them of falsely blaming a German Army general for the country’s defeat in the First World War.
Kinnock’s ‘German propaganda’ jibe at the Tories was one of a number of provocative remarks he made at a rally hosted by Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman on Thursday. The hour-long speech was made at the Peckham Pelican wine bar in South London, where Kinnock drank red wine, though there is no suggestion he was under the influence of alcohol.
Tories last night compared it to his ‘Sheffield Rally’ address he made just before the 1992 General Election when he was Labour leader, and which was blamed for his defeat. Excitable Kinnock shouted ‘We’re aw’right!’ and punched the air in anticipation of victory – and voters turned against him.
The Mail on Sunday has obtained a tape recording of Kinnock’s Peckham Pelican speech in which he also claimed Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne had ‘slit the throat’ of the economy with ‘propaganda about Britain on the brink’ perpetuating their ‘lie’ that the crash was Labour’s fault.
The ‘truth’ was that Gordon Brown had ‘saved the world and Britain and been lacerated for this great, merciful mission ever since’.
Kinnock also branded the Tories ‘a bunch of closet racists’ out to destroy the welfare state to ‘control the people’. In a throwback to Labour’s Left-wing roots, Kinnock said Ed Miliband’s aim was to ‘secure control of the means of government by democratic means’.
Kinnock also revealed new details of how Ed Miliband plotted to defeat his brother David before Gordon Brown lost the 2010 Election, while Ed was writing Labour’s manifesto. He said Ed was ‘courageous’ – and not just for ‘taking on his brother’ in the ensuing leadership contest.
Three months before Gordon Brown lost the 2010 Election, Kinnock urged Ed to stand for leader.
Kinnock said he asked him: ‘Are you going to run?’ And Ed replied: ‘I have to admit this has not been absent from my mind, but what about David?’ When Kinnock joked: ‘Well, he’s got a right to run against you,’ Ed answered: ‘You know I didn’t mean that, you sod!’
Kinnock says he added: ‘You didn’t mean it, but I did! That’s why I’m in your office talking to you.’
Kinnock won rousing cheers for his speech in Peckham, but it was not error free. He accused Speaker John Bercow, who was elected as a Tory MP, of handing out ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ T-shirts in his youth – a claim Bercow has always denied.
And he confused former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling with Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor.
Harman introduced him at the Peckham rally as ‘the high priest of Labour values’. She added that local activists liked to ‘have fun, eat and drink’ – as well as discuss politics.
Kinnock is one of Miliband’s most loyal supporters. When Ed became Labour leader, Kinnock declared: ‘We’ve got our party back.’
His daughter Rachel Kinnock is an adviser to Miliband, and his son Stephen Kinnock, who is married to Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, is expected to be elected Labour MP for Aberavon in Wales in the Election.
A Labour spokesman said: ‘Neil Kinnock is a man who has devoted his life to fighting for social justice.’ It was ‘ludicrous’ to suggest he was ‘comparing George Osborne and David Cameron to Nazis’.
‘Repeated lies, deceit and dangerous untruths’