Britain: British pro-euro campaigners were last night demanding the withdrawal of a cinema advertisement featuring a sketch in which comedian Rik Mayall portrays Adolf Hitler as a supporter of the single currency.
The No campaign, which launched the celebrity-packed advertisement yesterday, urging people not to support the euro, dismissed the complaints, insisting that it was just harmless fun.
But supporters of the Britain in Europe group denounced the advertisement as a "tasteless caricature" and called for it to be withdrawn.
The advertisement briefly shows Mayall dressed as Hitler and barking: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein euro", a reference to the Nazi slogan "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" (One people, one empire, one leader).
The chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, Lord Janner, a Labour peer, described the portrayal as "crass, distasteful and totally inappropriate".
Among the celebrities lining up alongside Mayall in the video are rock star and Live Aid founder Sir Bob Geldof, comedians Vic Reeves, Harry Enfield and John Sessions and chef Gordon Ramsay, as well as Labour MPs Diane Abbott and Kate Hoey.
"It's not anti-European to be against the euro," Geldof says in the video.