Yeeeehah!
El Gordo is toast. At least, that\’s the implication of this research by Daniel Finkelstein (pbuh).
How could I have missed this? The heavy influence of Bob Shrum on Gordon Brown\’s speech. How could I have missed it?
First of all there are plenty of phrases pretty directly lifted from speeches made by Shrum clients, many of which he admits he wrote.
Now my reaction might be thought a little extreme but you see there\’s a precedent here. El Gordo is copying the speeches of Democratic party hopefuls (Shrum\’s record at 0/7 means that all of his cleints remain hopefuls). OK, unh hunh.
But, we have the case of Senator Joe Biden to guide us. He made a speech in which he copied the words of Neil Kinnock. When this was revealed, Biden left the race to be the Democratic nominee.
Now, we also know that as a Son of the Manse El Gordo has rather more probity than a US Senator (there is pond slime with greater probity than a US Senator so that\’s not exactly a ringing endorsement but…) so, if plagiarism means withdrawing, El Gordo should indeed withdraw.
What an excellent result: he waits 10 years for the top job and then gets the shortest time in office for centuries. Couldn\’t happen to a nicer man.
Damn, Finkelstein is an idiot.
For those who can’t be bothered to read the linked article, the alleged plagiarisms he cites are along the lines of:
1) “people say I’m too serious, maybe that’s true”
2) “I pledge not to let the British people down”
3) the phrase “moral compass”
4) “we can’t waste anyone’s talents”
Now, while these are all MASSIVE BLOODY GREAT CLICHES THAT EVERY POLITICIAN USES ALL THE TIME, and while that’s a bit annoying, it’s got bollocks-all to do with Shrum.
Tim adds: “Damn, Finkelstein is an idiot.” Well, he’s been known to employ me which somewhat strengthens your case. But aren’t you taking it all a little too, too seriously?
These politicians do speeches-by-numbers nowadays.
You write down a list of 100 stock-phrases like local, dialogue, community, challenge, effort, work, engage, empower, values, Britsh, Britain, globalisation, climate change, together, diversity and so on, and then you pick a phrase, cross it off the list, choose a few fill-in words to lead you to another phrase, write that down, cross it off the list and so on until you’ve used each phrase at least once.
It is a piece of piss.
Here’s my effort from this morning, I didn’t even use the checklist.
http://markwadsworth.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-labour-conference-speech-excerpt.html
“Britsh”? Shurely shome mishtake?
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