- By Becky Morton
- Political reporter
Image supply, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
Rachel Reeves has denied claims of plagiarism, after it emerged some passages of her new e book had been lifted from sources together with Wikipedia.
A spokesperson for Ms Reeves rejected the accusations, including: “These were inadvertent mistakes and will be rectified in future reprints.”
Tory chairman Greg Hands mentioned the claims had been “potentially very serious”.
The e book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, was launched at an Institute for Government occasion on Wednesday night.
Ms Reeves, a former Bank of England economist, is hoping to turn into the nation’s first feminine chancellor if Labour wins the following basic election.
The Financial Times mentioned its reporters had noticed greater than 20 examples of obvious plagiarism within the e book, together with complete sentences and paragraphs.
It mentioned these principally contained biographical data.
The BBC has checked the examples highlighted by the FT and located some materials within the e book was similar to on-line sources.
For instance, a sentence concerning the relationship between creator H.G. Wells and economist Beatrice Webb is equivalent to at least one on Ms Webb’s Wikipedia page.
Only a couple of phrases within the paragraph within the e book differ from Mr Benn’s foreword.
At the e book’s launch occasion, which occurred the night earlier than the Financial Times article was printed, Ms Reeves was requested how she discovered the time to write down it.
In response she mentioned: “My day job is fairly consuming and I’ve obtained two major aged youngsters however I needed to carve out time to write down this e book.
“In the acknowledgements I acknowledged the analysis assistants that I had, significantly on the information and the element that went into the pen portraits of the ladies that I discuss.
“And that came from a range of sources, from books, from interviews, from articles, from Wikipedia.”
Book launches at Westminster are ten-a-penny.
You can measure how an creator is perceived – and which method the political wind is regarded as blowing – by who and what number of end up for a e book launch.
If you handle to justify having an “overflow room” and there’s an excitable vibe concerning the heat white wine clutching attendees, Westminster is collectively saying you are on the up.
At Rachel Reeves’s e book launch on Wednesday night time, there was that vibe and there was that overflow room.
The complete factor oozed with a way of perceived imminent energy: that the creator of the e book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, would quickly be chancellor of the exchequer.
Well, let’s examine – that is for the citizens to determine.
But with hindsight her reference to Wikipedia within the query and reply session – which struck me as odd on the time – sounds quite like a reference upfront to the criticism she knew was coming.
The complete premise of her e book is there was a complete load of economists ignored and uncredited for his or her work.
So it is unlucky, to say the least, that that’s exactly what she is now being accused of.
Publisher Basic Books mentioned: “When factual sentences had been taken from major sources, they need to have been rewritten and correctly referenced.
“We acknowledge this didn’t occur in each case. As at all times in situations similar to these, we are going to assessment all sources and guarantee any omissions are rectified in future reprints.”
The assertion added: “At no level did Rachel search to current these information as unique analysis.
“There is an in depth and selective bibliography of over 200 books, articles and interviews.
“Where information are taken from a number of sources, no creator could be anticipated to reference every one.”
Mr Hands mentioned Ms Reeves wanted to “clarify herself urgently”.
“Labour actually haven’t any new plans for this nation,” he wrote on X, branding Ms Reeves a “copy and paste shadow chancellor”.
Ms Reeves is known to have written the e book herself however was helped by analysis assistants, who labored on biographical materials.