Obama picks senator who 'stole' Neil Kinnock's speech as his running mate

The highly controversial selection will infuriate Mrs Clinton’s millions of supporters as the Democratic Party opens its nominating convention in Denver, Colorado, this week.

Mr Biden is also recognised as being gaffe-prone, and was forced to drop out as a candidate for President in 1988 after it was discovered his best speech had been plagiarised from then British Labour Party leader Neil – now Lord – Kinnock.

Two of a kind: Joe Biden has been named as Barack Obama's running mate

In a powerful speech in May 1987, Mr Kinnock said: ‘Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?

'Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think they didn’t get what we had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?

'Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.’

Four months later, in his presidential campaign, Mr Biden repeated this paragraph – making reference to his own family – and other parts of Mr Kinnock’s speech almost word for word.

Biden's 'greatest speech writer': Neil Kinnock

Since then the two men have become firm friends.

Lord Kinnock said last night that the last time they met the senator introduced him to aides by saying: ‘Do you know this guy? He used to be my greatest speechwriter.’

This year Mr Biden, again running as a presidential candidate, denounced Mr Obama by declaring he simply didn’t have enough experience for the top job.

‘Obama is not ready to be President,’ he said in a TV interview now certain to become the centrepiece of Republican Party advertising as they focus their attacks on America’s first major black presidential candidate.

Mr Biden went on to point out that Mr Obama, 47, didn’t have enough experience of foreign policy. And asked if he would consider running as Vice-President, he said: ‘I would not accept it if anyone offered it to me.’

Those close to the Delaware senator say he now regrets his remarks, as Mr Obama has proven in the last three months that he is ‘the right man at the right time’, and Biden is ‘deeply proud’ to be his running mate.

Mr Obama has chosen Mr Biden because of his enormous foreign policy and defence experience – he is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He hopes it will balance his own lack of foreign policy background and help counter Republican charges that the world is far too dangerous to trust the White House to such a newcomer.

Mr Obama is known to dislike Mrs Clinton, but he was under enormous pressure to pick her as Vice-President because she won so many votes in the primaries and because she continues to attract the white working class.

Riding a wave: Biden with his wife Jill at their home in Delaware after the news

His camp is alarmed that he is still running neck-and-neck with 72-year-old Republican nominee John McCain. They thought he would lead the polls because George Bush is considered to have been such a disaster.

But since the Russian invasion of Georgia, Americans have been warming to Mr McCain because they believe he would hold the country in very safe hands.

The Democrats can now argue that while Mr Obama has all the youth and drive and new ideas, he will also have vast foreign policy experience at his right hand.

However, there is a drawback. Mr Obama is promoting himself as an outsider not locked into

the old school of Washington ‘politics-as-usual’ operators.

But Mr Biden, in the Senate since 1972, is very much an insider. With him as his partner, it will now be more difficult for Mr Obama to condemn insiders and old-timers like Mr McCain.

The working-class joker ‘whites will trust’

Senator Joe Biden, the son of a used-car salesman, has an unfortunate knack of putting his foot in his mouth.

He is known for long, boring, speeches and finding complicated ways to say simple things. 

One of four siblings from an Irish-Catholic family, Mr Biden lives in Wilmington, Delaware, with his second wife, education professor Jill.

Joking around: Obama and Biden share a hug during the rally

His first marriage took place in 1966 when he was still at law school but ended in tragedy in 1972, when his wife Neilia and their 13-month-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash.

Their sons, Beau and Hunter, were also in the car but survived. 

Both are lawyers and Beau is due to go to Iraq in October with the National Guard – the American equivalent of the Territorial Army. 

Mr Biden wed Jill in 1977 and they have a daughter, Ashley.

Democrats hope that Mr Biden’s strong Catholic working-class roots will help to dispel the perception that Mr Obama is an elitist. 

Democrat pollster Robert Moss said: ‘Biden will attract the white working-class vote, people who don’t really trust Obama. Biden fills all the gaps in Obama’s resumé.’ 

Mr Biden has more than 30 years in the US Senate and Mr Obama will be hoping to call on his enormous political experience. 

Asked why he had chosen Mr Biden, Mr Obama said: ‘I want somebody who is going to be able to challenge my thinking and not simply be a yes-person.’