Secret Government documents have revealed that American talk show host Michael Savage was only included in a British government ‘banned list’ because it was dominated by Muslims.

The documents have been made public as part of the discovery process in Mr Savage’s ongoing £100,000 libel case against former Home Secretary Jacqui “I never ran anything before the Home Office” Smith.

The official correspondence, released under the Freedom of Information Act, has revealed that Mr Savage’s name was placed on a list of people banned from Britain only to provide “balance” and that officials specifically warned the Government that it could be accused of being “duplicitous” by including his name.

Referring to Mr Savage by his real name of Weiner, one of the email messages, dated 27 November 2008, from an unnamed Home Office official, says, “with Weiner, I can understand that disclosure of the decision would help provide a balance of types of exclusion cases.

“We will want to ensure that the names disclosed reflect the broad range of cases and are not all Islamic extremists.”

A further email confirmed the decision was approved at the highest level of Government, saying: “HO [Home Office] intend to include Weiner in their quarterly stats… Both the FS [Foreign Secretary] and PM [Prime Minister] are firmly behind listing and naming such people.”

One civil servant counselled caution, saying: “I think we could be accused of duplicity in naming him” and helpfully added that “the fact that he is homophobic does help.”

Mr Savage had earlier accused Ms Smith of having plucked his name out of a hat because he was “controversial and white.” These latest revelations add weight to that charge.

Speaking to the World Net Daily news service, Mr Savage said it was now obvious that the Home Office chose him to balance the list of Muslim extremists because he is Jewish.

“The name Dreyfus comes to mind. They have attempted to destroy my reputation to avoid offending those Muslims who want to destroy them! The Warsaw ghetto comes to mind, where some Jews threw other Jews into Gestapo hands to live another day,” he said.

“Make no mistake about this — they ‘chose’ me because I am the only talker in the top five who is Jewish! The old anti-Semitic strain has resurfaced in England, not among the right wing, but on the socialist left. This should galvanize every member of the U.S. media, but will it?”

Mr Savage said his message for Ms Smith and the people of the UK was, “Shame on you. Shame that you’ve fallen to such a low level.”

“It’s interesting to me that here I am a talk show host, who does not advocate violence, who advocates patriotic traditional values — borders, language, culture — who is now on a list banned in England,” he said. “What does that say about the government of England? It says more about them than it says about me.”