In 1987, Neil Kinnock delivered the following words in a speech to the Labour Party conference:
"Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get into university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get into university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick? Did they lack talent? Those people who could sing and play and recite and write poetry? The people who could make wonderful, beautiful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn’t they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? Weak? Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what we had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand."
Clearly impressed with Kinnock's efforts, Joe Biden 'borrowed' a passage of the speech during his unsuccessful run for the Presidency in 1988. Ridiculed by the media for his blatant plagiarism, he was forced to drop out of the race.
"I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I’m the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest? Those same people who read poetry and wrote poetry and taught me how to sing verse? Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours? No, it’s not because they weren’t as smart. It’s not because they didn’t work as hard. It’s because they didn’t have a platform upon which to stand."
Am I alone in thinking this passage from Ed Miliband's speech to the Labour Party conference this afternoon is, well, rather similar to Kinnock's 1987 offering?
"I think of the teenager from my constituency who I met last year, the grandson of a miner. He told me University wasn’t for him, and I’ve thought often about the conversation I had with him: he wasn’t going to University not because he didn’t have the ability, but because in our unequal society, he didn’t have the networks, influences and support. For him and for every kid across the country with potential and ability, we have so much more to do to live up to our ideal of equal life chances for all. He needs a government that believes that kids in my constituency deserve as much of a chance as those in private schools"
They do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
