A senior British MP today nominated Joe Biden for a Nobel peace prize.
Labour’s Chris Bryant announced his move on the eve of the big presidential debate between Mr Biden and Donald Trump.
He told the Standard: “When others have resorted to violent solutions, he has argued that the best force is the force of argument.
“Because guns can stop a heart but well-placed words can change many hearts, and many hearts can change a world.”
Mr Bryant, a former shadow leader of the Commons, said Members of Parliament had a little-known right to put forward nominations to the Nobel prize nominating committee.
His intervention appeared to be timed to influence American public opinion ahead of the first presidential debate between the Democrat candidate for the White House and the Republican president.
Mr Trump was mired in a row over a report in the New York Times that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, after years of reporting heavy losses from his business enterprises.
Fighting back, he insisted he paid "many millions of dollars in taxes" and that he had many more assets than debt, but did not provide evidence or promise to release any financial statements before the Nov. 3 election.
"I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits," he wrote on Twitter. "I am extremely under leveraged - I have very little debt compared to the value of assets."
A right-wing Norwegian MP recently nominated Mr Trump for the Nobel peace prize, citing his role in normalising relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Christian Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News: “For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees.”
Nominations for the prize are accepted from any politician serving at a national level, as well as from heads of state. There were 318 candidates for the 2020 prize which has not yet been announced.
