A Lambeth opposition councillor has been forced to make a humiliating apology after comparing a council officer to Nazi propaganda leader Joseph Goebbels.

In an email Liberal Democrat Councillor Julian Heather, who represents the Streatham Wells ward, told the council officer "Goebbels would be proud" of the email he had sent inviting councillors to the presentations of a residents' survey.

Within the email, sent after 1am on January 24 - just days before Holocaust Memorial Day, Coun Heather blasted the content of the invite, which summarised some of the survey's findings.

"I am afraid I find the council approach to this kind of propaganda somewhat of the Goebbels style," he wrote to the officer.

But a few days later he apparently had a change of heart and sent a grovelling apology to the council officer.

"The comments I made were not meant to be aimed at you specifically but were instead an attempt to air my concerns about the way the council deals with news management," he wrote.

"Please let me apologise unreservedly to you and to anyone else who saw my email for any hurt or upset that it caused. In particular, I can see that my reference to Goebbels was inappropriate.

"In the circumstances I will not be attending either of the presentations but I hope they prove useful."

Coun Heather's blunder echoes the error made in February 2006 by Ken Livingstone, when he was suspended from office for four weeks for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard.

Councillor Lorna Campbell, Cabinet member for inclusion, said: "He did issue a seemingly heartfelt apology but the comments shouldn't have been said in the first place.

"I was taken aback it was even in his thought process. How did he get from talking about the residents' survey to saying Goebbels would be proud?

"In light of the fact it was a couple of days before Holocaust Memorial Day, it was very untimely."