But, according to the former Labour leader yesterday, Mr Biden believed it also probably saved his life — giving him unexpected time for diagnosis and treatment of a brain condition — and gave him the chance to fight again another day.

That day is fast approaching, with the Democratic Senator announcing at the weekend that “my intention is to seek the nomination” for a second run at the White House in 2008. Lord Kinnock of Bedwelty told The Times that he had never held the episode against Mr Biden, saying: “I knew he was on the enlightened wing of the US Democratic Party and I was a bit sorry all this had made him drop out.”

Mr Biden’s speech in September 1987 borrowed, without attribution, large sections of a rousing address by the Labour leader. When this was spotted by the son of a Labour MP working for Michael Dukakis, Mr Biden’s rival for the Democrat presidential nomination in 1988, an “attack video” was released swiftly detailing the plagiarism. Within two weeks, Mr Biden had been forced to quit the campaign, as further claims about his cut- and-paste tendencies emerged.

A year later the Senator travelled to London and sought to make light of the incident as he presented Mr Kinnock with copies of his own speeches.

However, in private, Mr Biden thanked Mr Kinnock. “He told me that if he had not been forced off the campaign trail, he would never have had the time to go to a doctor about these pains he was getting in his head.”

Asked if he felt that he had saved Mr Biden’s life, Lord Kinnock replied: “I wouldn’t say that, but it’s what he told me.”

In February 1988, when Mr Biden had expected to be fighting key primary elections, he had a brain aneurysm diagnosed that required immediate surgery.

Since then he has spent years rebuilding respect and his political prospects. This month he became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he is guaranteed a high public profile.

Although regarded as a long shot for the 2008 Democratic nomination behind the likes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, he believes that the race is still wide open.

Lord Kinnock said: “It looks like it’s going to be a fairly crowded field. Let’s see how things work out for Joe, but he is a really nice guy, a really smart guy.”

Unlike the Senator, Lord Kinnock, who is now head of the British Council, is not looking to make a political comeback.

Was it something I said?

NEIL KINNOCK

“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 that 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”

JOE BIDEN

“I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife, who is sitting out there in the audience, is the first in her family to ever go to college? “Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? . . . No . . . It’s because they didn’t have a platform upon which to stand”

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