Nick Clegg has made his first major policy speech. In it, he states: “In seeking to make Britain fairer, we need to stop just asking “how much”, and to start thinking hard about “how”.”
In 2001, I edited a book called A Blue Tomorrow, and I commissioned an article from Kit Malthouse on tax in which he wrote: “The question for the Conservative Party shouldn’t have been merely ‘How Much?’ but more fundamentally ‘How?’”
Ah, Cleggmeister, you can wear as many red ties as you like, but fundamentally you think like a Tory.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Clegg: Conviction or Plagiarism?!
Courtesy of Ed Vaizey...
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18 comments:
my god! one politician used a phrase used by another seven years ago! its all one big conspiracy...
Plagiarism must be endemic in the Lib Dem leadership as Clegg’s plagiarism follows hard on the heels of “acting leader” ‘Brutus Cable” with his Mr Bean jibe at Comrade Brown. Yet likening Comrade Brown to Mr Bean was coined by two different journalists!! There’s Hugo Rifkind of The Times who – on 4 December 2007 – said: “Ahem. Last week Vince Cable likened Gordon Brown to Mr Bean. Although he claims to have come up with it in the bath (worrying, on all sorts of levels) a consensus has emerged that the similarity was first noted in the Daily Express on November 19. In fact, may we humbly redirect the record towards this very page, on July 3.” Link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2994637.ece
and Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express on 19 November 2007:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/25661/PM-a-cross-between-Mr-Bean-and-Nixon-
"Jill," you've been spamming this for ages now and still... nobody cares. Whether anyone at all reads the Express is debatable, Vince I rather suspect, does not. It was his dry delivery that everyone enjoyed.
Are you Leo perhaps? If so, would you like to say sorry for that evil poison you wrote about Evan Harris?
Anonymous @10.22pm – if I was Leo McKinstry I’d go on every television and radio station to complain about Brutus Cable’s plagiarism. However – you’ve not read my last posting carefully – there is another contender to accuse Brutus Cable of plagiarism – Hugo Rifkind of The Times.
For your information, I shall post – WITH EVIDENCE – that Brutus Cable is a plagiarist whenever it is appropriate! You would obviously be much happier posting on Liberal love-in websites – I suggest you try Lib Dem Voice!
Maybe the Tory in question thinks like a Liberal Democrat.
Please don't compare left wingers like Mr Clegg to Tories. Have some pride man!
Jill, he made a joke at PMQs that everyone enjoyed - end of. Nobody gives a fig if some fat sod from the Daily Princess Diana also made the joke. If you are an Express reader, that might explain your apparently curious mental health.
To anonymous @ 10.52PM – who I presume is the same anonymous @ 10.22PM – I repeat you have not read my post carefully – I also mentioned The Times as well as the Daily Express. Yes, Brutus Cable made a joke at PMQs – but he was a plagiarist in doing so – and has basked in other people’s glory ever since!
If I display what you call “curious mental health” in complaining about plagiarism from Brutus Cable – that says more about your morals than mine!
Jill, I coroborate your contribution having read both The Times and Express.
But I do think the delivery of Cable was quite good and, lets face it, it reached far more people than the Times and Express!!
Cable can now go on dancing the Tango or whatever and leave Clegg to recreate The Liberal Party and advocate coming out of the EU!! leaving Cameron stuttering.
I thought the evading of Cameron in answering the question on the referendum when all parliaments had signed the constitution was so so vague. Why cannot he say we will re-negotiate our conditions of membership?
Clegg could steal the thunder by saying the Liberal Party will leave the EU!
Months on you're obsessing over the fact someone made a joke that someone else had sort of made i tabloid newspaper column? Crikey.
By the way, you do realise that:
(i) it doesn't prove anything
(ii) you're the only in Britain who cares?
Anonymous 1 @ 11.30PM – I am not David Cameron’s spokesperson – but he did say today that the Conservatives would hold a referendum on the EU treaty, if they won power before it was ratified by all EU states. Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7185953.stm. The chance of Clegg saying he’d take the country out of the EU is most doubtful because [a] it is highly unlikely the Liberals will ever govern this country again, unless they can return the compliment by making the Labour Party the ‘third party’ [ie doing to the Comrades what was done to them] – and [b] as the Liberals are an extremely pro-European party [as voted for in countless recent conferences] if they had their way this country would be subsumed into the EU.
Anonymous 2 @ 11.30PM – yes, it proves that Cable is a plagiarist – with EVIDENCE TO BACK THIS UP. And I refuse to be bullied out of this by someone I presumably to be a Liberal but doesn’t like this being drawn to public attention.
Ed Vaizey is obsessed with Nick Clegg.
First it was Nick getting higher up on the "sexy male politician" list than Ed, then the igloo, then Ed paying homage to Nick's higher (though worse) score on Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test.
Iain, Iain, Iain. Since 18DS shut up shot, you have become a totally tribal, partisan hack. This does not become you.
Asking fellow Tories what the point of the Lib Dems always raises a laugh, but Nick Clegg takes things to extremes. Do you really find anything he says interesting? To me, he appears to excel in making no impact.
Well, there's so little actual thought coming from politicians you hear the same old bo**ocks day in day out. Modernisation this, modernisation that. Bringing politics closer to the people. Empowering communities. Delivering choice. Blah, blah, blah. They do this because they can't get the f'n fundamentals right- REGARDLESS of who is in power:- can't deliver good quality public services; can't significantly reduce the skivers on 'Jobseekers' allowance/ 'incapacity' benefit; can't do f'all about illegal immigration; can't do diddly effectively policing our society. Yes Minister had the effectiveness of our system spot on:- it's just one big incompetent mess, and one lie after another!
ah, I love the sight of rattled tories...
I have been looking through the speech and its awfully difficult to see what the point is .
Clegg claims to be more concerned with fairness than Conservatives but wishes to do so without alterting the overall tax burden.
On that basis its like saying "I `m in favour of good" I`m sure we would all like a fairer society as far as opoortunity is concerned and to differing degrees applying to results too.
If he is going to go one being this vague he will disappear and the porblem he has is that his Party were far from convinced about him or his orange book as we know . He is talking as much to them as to anyone else.
The further problem he has is that this close to Cameron why not vote for the real thing and get Brown out . I also think the glaring contradiction between twttering on about local power and supprting the EU with the kind of blind adoration he does cannot go unchallenged for long.
The impression is of a tired little dog trying to catch up with the hunt which swept past with new marker ideas a a long time ago.
I am not convinced anyone cares about this localism either.
It has to be said Iain that its one line, and it is a line I have used when speaking about things, but I have never read it before. i guess because it is such a commong phrase.
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