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Parts of Tory government’s levelling-up plan ‘copied from Wikipedia’

03 Feb 2022 2 minute read
Picture by the Policy Exchange (CC BY 2.0).

Parts of the UK Government’s so called ‘levelling-up” plan, appear to have been copied and pasted from Wikipedia, it has emerged.

The White Paper, which was unveiled by Tory Cabinet Minister Michael Gove in the House of Commons yesterday, also contains a number of  glaring publishing errors, such as entire paragraphs being repeated wholesale.

The document includes a commitment to devolve powers to parts of England, but not to Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The UK Government has instead decided to retain the power over structural funds it took away from devolved governments.

Under the plan, Westminster will continue to bypass the Welsh Government and keep control over cash handed to local councils.

One section of the document says: “Constantinople was the capital of the Roman/Byzantine Empire (330-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922)”.

This part of the text is identical to the first line of the Wikipedia page for the city of Constantinople, including the punctuation and formatting

Another section includes a  timeline of the largest cities in the world since 7,000 BC. It is identical to the table of a “List of largest cities throughout history” on page.

A paragraph about the history of the ancient city of Jerico is repeated twice on the same page.

‘Cobbled together in a rush’

Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron, told The Independent: “The Levelling Up White Paper read like something which had been cobbled together in a rush, with no mention of the rural communities which have been long forgotten by this Government. So it’s not at all surprising to see entire sections lifted from Wikipedia.

“The Conservatives can’t even muster up the effort to properly invest in some of our most deprived regions, so anything beyond a copy and paste job would have been surpassing expectations.

“But as ever, this Government can’t even meet the low bar they have set of themselves. Their hollow promises to families facing a cost of living crisis aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.”


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Barry Pandy
Barry Pandy
2 years ago

This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.

Peter Cuthbert
Peter Cuthbert
2 years ago

We thought it was a Dead Cat project to “Save Boris” and as the days pass it becomes ever more obvious that we were correct. So remember to always refer to them as the “Lets have a Party Tory Party” since that is the best way to bury a Dead Cat.

Marc
Marc
2 years ago

Johnston is the captain of a ship of fools

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
2 years ago

Just what you would expect from a hack journalist…together with his boss an example of the very worst of the gutter press…

Gareth
Gareth
2 years ago

This demonstrates the utter contempt the bunch of sheister’s in power in Westminster, have for the electorate. They dont even respect the English voter, let alone the Celtic countries. Snake oil salesmen every last one of them in Downing St.

Kerry Davies
Kerry Davies
2 years ago

Gove has form for being too drugged up to function going back to the 70’s but he achieved greatness when Cameron delegated him to write the new UK constitution so they could ditch the Human Rights Act. After two years graft with an entire tribe of civil servants he had written a title …. which was rejected as constitutionally illegal by the parliamentary legal authorities.
Then he went into rehab again.

Erisian
Erisian
2 years ago

I hope he made a contribution to JImmy Whale’s appeal for support.

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