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Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Rachel Reeves’ new book is a copy and paste from WIKIPEDIA in plagiarism scandal.
But allies of Reeves, a former Bank of England economist, argued that the key theme of the book was about how women economists had shaped the shadow chancellor’s thinking, and strongly denied plagiarism.
A spokesperson for Reeves said: “We strongly refute the accusation that has been put to us by this newspaper. These were inadvertent mistakes and will be rectified in future reprints.”
Basic Books said that at no point did Reeves seek to present as original research the details flagged by the FT. “There is an extensive and selective bibliography of over 200 books, articles and interviews,” the publisher said. “Where facts are taken from multiple sources, no author would be expected to reference each and every one.”
Rachel Reeves has been dubbed the “copy and paste shadow chancellor” after her new book was found to have lifted a number of passages from Wikipedia.
The Women Who Made Modern Economics, a 288-page guide to “overlooked” female economists through the ages, was published by the Labour frontbencher on Thursday.
But manual checks by the Financial Times found more than 20 sections in Ms Reeves’s book that directly reproduce text from elsewhere without acknowledging the original sources.
While Ms Reeves has denied accusations of plagiarism, her spokesman admitted “inadvertent mistakes” had been made in failing to credit some of the material she used.
Greg Hands, the Conservative Party chairman, described the revelations as “remarkable”, writing on Twitter: “Labour literally have no new plans for this country.
“As always, Sir Keir and his copy and paste shadow chancellor will take the easy way out every time – endlessly replicating the same old stuff from the past.”
One of the examples cited by the Financial Times was a passage in Ms Reeves’s book about Beatrice Webb, a labour historian and a co-founder of the London School of Economics.
The section reads: “For her part, Beatrice [Webb] voiced disapproval of Wells’s ‘sordid intrigue’ with the daughter of a veteran Fabian member. He responded by lampooning the couple in his 1911 novel The New Machiavelli as Altiora and Oscar Bailey, a pair of short-sighted, bourgeois manipulators.”
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