In the moving peroration of his speech yesterday, Clegg said:
"On the peace wall in Peckham there was a note that simply read: 'Our home. Our children. Our future.' Six words that say more than six hundred speeches. Our home. Our children. Our future. Britain is our home. We will make it safe and strong. These are our children. We will tear down every barrier they face. And this is our future. We start building it today."
But was there really such a note? Was this really what it said?
Fortunately, the BBC has preserved a zoomable image of the Peckham peace wall.
This reveals that Clegg did indeed use a bit of rhetorical licence on the quote to improve it for his speech.
The note actually said 'Our Home. Our Future. Our Children. Community.'
Obviously, the first thing Cleggers did was delete the word community. Quite right too. It's horribly unrhythmic, disrupting the beautiful little three-part-list that the writer had established before that. Plus, 'community' is one of those ghastly Labour-like words, with no place in the Liberal lexicon.
But Clegg didn't stop there! He also re-ordered the three part list, swapping around 'our future' and 'our children', showing that Clegg is a fan of the rhetorical maxim that you must always end your speech in the future.
Does it matter? Johann Hari¹s career has been left in tatters for misquoting people. Maybe Clegg should face similar censure?
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