Well, I suppose it had to happen… It was only a matter of time before one of the major parties attempted to out-Ukip Ukip by referencing the final solution.

Miliband has been doing it from the opposite angle, going all Disraeli and attempting to play up his Jewish credentials while simultaneously claiming to be agnostic at best.

While IDS has all but inscribed Arbeit Macht Frei above the doors of the Department of Work and (No) Pensions.
When the latest salvo of Third Reich rhetoric came however, it emerged from a surprising quarter.

Yes, step forward, Tory dream candidate Chamali Fernando, a Lib Dem defector from an ethnic background who seemingly ticked all the desirable boxes.

Fernando made a spectacular bid to be Uber-lieutenant of the party this week by exploiting the hard-right hinterland, so frequently the domain of Ukip and the BNP in recent years.

Displaying all the caring sensitivity of Josef Mengele filling in for Nurse Ratched, the prospective candidate for Cambridge expressed the opinion that those with mental health issues should sport a wristband illustrating to the world their particular brand of illness.

This, she suggested, was not designed to stigmatise the individual in question but to “help police and social services deal with them more effectively.”

I seem to remember the Gestapo had a similar idea.

Presumably she thought it would be just like Glastonbury, albeit entirely populated by those suffering from schizophrenia and manic depression — but with less access to pharmaceuticals.

Admittedly Fernando has voluntarily spent the last few months sporting a rosette that singles her out as a dangerously anti-social mental defective but surely this is a step too far.

Next they’ll be proposing branding people like cattle.

The Alternative Tentacles record label, founded by erstwhile Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra, used to sell T-shirts sporting a bar-code accompanied by the legend “soon these will be tattooed on your wrist.”

Even Biafra might be shocked by just how soon these ironic — yet prescient — ideas appear to have been adopted entirely seriously by the mainstream political parties.

Mental health is the all too often ignored flashing red warning bulb when it comes to the NHS, frequently shunted to the sidelines under the umbrella title of “care in the community” or, to translate that into political parlance, “we couldn’t give a fuck.”

For the record and for what it’s worth, Fernando claimed she had been misquoted and had merely said that the mentally ill “could” be tagged in such a manner, not “should.”

Oh, well that’s alright then.

If only Goebbels had been so ambiguous.

Still, at least she’s in keeping with currentTory policy. They haven’t given a cast-iron pledge on anything except that they’ll do their damnedest to screw over the poor.

Personally this column had never heard of Fernando until now — and likely won’t again — but then it’s always the quiet ones isn’t it?

The types who strut around in public wearing full SS regalia — yes Aidan Burley I do mean you — tend to be sad inadequates and fantasists who get off on shock value and dressing up.

Distasteful in the extreme as such behaviour is, if you look at any truly egregious act perpetrated in recent times they always cut to a door-stepping reporter and a neighbour saying: “Well, they kept themselves to themselves, always very polite although they did seem to have an issue with the size of their living room…”

And then they find the lampshades made out of human skin.

Elections do seem to bring out the worst in our wannabe politicians.

Who can forget the nauseatingly racist “If you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour” campaign?

Or the homophobic Lib Dem “it’s a straight choice” electoral gambit against Peter Tatchell.

If the last few weeks have shown anything it is that if we have moved on from those dark days at all the rehabilitation of our politicians is only skin-deep. And in many cases not even that.

It’s not that they don’t think these things all year round — they undoubtedly do — it’s just that normally people have the good sense not to give them the time of day.

But once every five years, or more often if one of them drops off the twig or defects and triggers a by-election, these morons are actually given a platform to air their ill-conceived notions and petty bigotries.

About the only one not clamouring for the media limelight is Cameron, who appears to have belatedly realised that the less people see of him the better, particularly if he actually has to try and defend any of his policies.

Nick Clegg doesn’t seem to have learnt that particular lesson. For someone who one would have thought would be spending the next few weeks entirely incommunicado he seemed rather put out not to be included in this week’s leadership debate.

“I find it very odd that the debate tonight doesn’t have anybody from one of the parties that have actually been trying to govern our country,” he whined.

Which is a bit rich coming from someone whose entire campaign mantra consists of saying: “It wasn’t us!”