What else Brown takes from America

I loved the Fink’s tracing of passages in Brown’s speech back to those of American politicians. But why stop at rhetoric? Brown’s policies are burgled from America too. He used to go to America for ideas in the way that Colleen McLaughlin goes there for clothes. Tax credits were a Clinton device. Sure Start nursery centres are a (failed) copy of Head Start. Even New Labour as a title apes the New Democrats. He bills his international aid package as a Marshall Plan. His Youth Volunteering is explicitly modelled on Americorps. The only thing which isn’t American is his tax burden.