And now the speech which made Neil Kinnock cry for the first time since Joe Biden plagiarised him has itself been plagiarised! Or, at the very least, his sermon from the heart has the finger prints of Bob Shrum, as the Times noted;
‘It suggests that Mr Brown’s recent attempts to appeal as a prime minister who rejects spin have been crafted, at least in part, by one of America’s highest-paid political advertising and speech consultants. ‘
In short; Talk about you, your mum, dad, childhood, wife, lessons learnt from family mum, dad, childhood and wife, wheel on a token hero of the day (John Smeaton) chuck in some God, not too much, but enough . Make sure you clarify each proposition with ‘let us be clear’ (used by Ted Kennedy in every speech Bob Shrum has written for him). Most of the rest of the speech was mindnumbingly ‘Gordon’ (which was still more entertaining than Millibands speech) and he resorted to plagiarising Michael Howard rather than Shrum.
Chris Grayling, summed it up well. He said: “We all know Gordon Brown’s announcements are reheated, and now his language seems reheated too. This destroys the myth that we are seeing a Prime Minister who has given up spin. Far from being the genuine article, he is just a copycat prime minister rehashing old material from US politicians.”
In response to
The Times story, I posted this:
Ever occurred to any one that Gordon Brown, ideologically, is pretty much of a similar mould as Bill Clinton and Al Gore? Something of a Third Way centrist. This, afterall, is how social democracy successfully renewed itself in Britain and assisted Labour towards its electoral victories from 1997 on. It also ensured Bill Clinton his two landslides in 1992 and 1996.
Therefore, it should hardly come as a surprise that Brown in expressing his convictions will, naturally, echo those of many American Democrats.
Brown is a man of deep personal conviction, largely grounded in his Presbyterian faith, who passionately believes in social justice. Yes people may scream and shout that he was somewhat tight-fisted on some things on certain fronts such as top-up tuition fees and measy pension increases but he understands that only a stable economy can be of benefit to the wider good of society. Quite in keeping with my passion for scratching beneath the surface. It's a sign of desparation that this made the front page of a broadsheet in the first instance
More on the conference later ...
Dave
