Manners and mores

I always wondered about the intelligence of politicians. My suspicions are confirmed by a story I read today in the Times in which a Conservative parliamentary candidate passed off a criticism of Labour policies as his own work - but the article he copied was in the Sun. He might at least have copied something from the FT or the Economist. What made me smile is that he didn't even write the article in question - but does not seem to have any problem with that. From the Times article: Mr Rees-Mogg, 40, son of the Times columnist and former Editor Lord Rees-Mogg, blamed a member of his staff. “Though the piece expresses my views, I didn’t specifically write it, although I agree with the points made,” he said. “Plagiarism is a bad thing and I will drop a note to Mr Kavanagh apologising. We won’t ask the person who did write this to write for us again.”  Do you think he realises that this is double the fault? Or does he genuinely think it is fine to have a staffer write an article and put your name on it, so long as the staffer's article is not copied from somewhere else?

Never mind throwing green custard over Lord Mandelson and getting away with it (story, and video, here) - Gordon Brown and the police saw the joke; Jonathan Porrit did not - Cadbury's chocolate has gone Fair Trade. Not only that, but it has got a blog, which "only took a matter of days" to put together. The staff of the company are busy dressing up as, and eating, bananas for some strange reason only known to PR departments. It's synchroblogging, guys, not synchrobananas. The blog is here, with pictures, if you are desperate to find out more, including where to go to eat your piece of fruit before noon tomorrow (Sat). Or is that a vegetable? Not a bar of chocolate, anyway.

Comments

[Dorte H]

Perhaps it is not only a question of intelligence, but also of integrity?

[Norm]

Politician's Integrity isn't that an oxymoron?

[Maxine]

Hee hee!

[Michael Walters]

I'm most struck by the slipperiness of the language - particularly by the redundant 'specifically', which implies, perhaps, that though Rees-Mogg didn't happen to write the article, he might easily have done so if time had allowed. I agree with many of the sentiments expressed in 'Bleak House' but I didn't specifically write it.