The “copy and paste” chancellor

After months of demanding strict message discipline from colleagues, Labour’s shadow chancellor has been forced into damage control after it emerged chunks of her new book were lifted from Wikipedia. The FT reported finding more than 20 examples of material reproduced without acknowledgement, and Rachel Reeves has come under attack from the Tories who branded her the “copy and paste shadow chancellor”. Although a spokesperson for Reeves denied plagiarism and said it was “inadvertent”, yesterday Reeves said “I hold my hands up” and that “mistakes were made”.  To add insult to injury, the book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, tells how many of these female economists have been overlooked by history.