Parts of Jeremy Corbyn’s keynote speech at the Labour party conference was written for Ed Miliband in 2011, it has emerged.
Mr Corbyn’s team confirmed that Neale Coleman, the Labour leader’s head of policy, spoke to the speechwriting expert Richard Heller in preparation for the speech.
Mr Heller offered Mr Miliband advice on how to attack the Tories in a range of speeches, including a passage on how to attack the Tories that was suggested to the former Labour leader for his conference speech in 2011. The passage, which Mr Heller advised would be good for “setting out his basic values”, was used by Mr Corbyn today, albeit it slightly altered. Mr Corbyn’s spokesman said Mr Heller was “happy” for the extracts to be reused for Mr Corbyn’s first conference speech as Labour leader.
The passage Mr Corbyn used after consulting with Mr Heller began: “Since the dawn of history in virtually every human society there are some people who are given a great deal and many more people who are given little or nothing. Some people have property and power, class and capital, status and clout which are denied to the many.”
This was very similar to Mr Heller’s suggested passage of speech offered to Mr Miliband for his 2011 conference address: “Since the dawn of history, in virtually every human society there are some people who are given a great deal and many more people who are given little or nothing. Some people have property and power, class and capital, status and even sanctity, which are denied to the multitude.”
The suggested passages of speech were published by Mr Heller on his website under the headline ‘A collection of zingers’. It said they were “speaking passages offered to Ed Miliband, without reply.” But were “available to others” if they emailed him.
Mr Heller used to work in politics as an adviser to veteran Labour MP Gerald Kauffman and former Labour stalwart Dennis Healey.
