Hitler 'got things done,' F1 boss says

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has described Adolf Hitler as a leader able to"get things done" in a discussion about dictators during an interview with The Times newspaper published on Saturday.

Asked to comment on accusations that world motorsport chief Max Mosley behaved like a dictator, Ecclestone went on to speak about Hitler, former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein - whom he said should have stayed in power - and the Taliban.

"In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he ... could command a lot of people, able to get things done," Ecclestone told The Times.

"In the end he got lost, so he wasn't a very good dictator."

Ecclestone added: "We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He was the only one who could control" Iraq.

"It was the same (with the Taliban in Afghanistan). We move into countries and we have no idea of the culture. The Americans probably thought Bosnia was a town in Miami. There are people starving in Africa and we sit back and do nothing but we get involved in things we should leave alone."

Ecclestone said Britain's only female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was also someone who had "got the job done."

"She was the one who built this country up slowly. We've let it go down again."

Ecclestone recently stated that Formula One need a Jewish black female driver to boost the sport's appeal.

"Mr Ecclestone's comments regarding Hitler, female, black and Jewish racing drivers, and dictatorships are quite bizarre," a spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews told The Times.

Denis MacShane, the Labour member of parliament and chairman of a parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism, told the paper: "If Mr Ecclestone seriously thinks Hitler had to be persuaded to kill six million Jews, invade every European country and bomb London then he knows neither history and shows a complete lack of judgment."

Last month, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo accused Mosley, the son of 1930s British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, of behaving like a dictator.