John Hayes, Britain's "further education minister," was just busted lifting parts of a speech almost verbatim from Wikipedia. It was probably a lesson to kids in how not to hide their blatant plagiarism?

In a speech about bank holidays (Oh, the British and their weird holidays!), Hayes cut and pasted huge passages from the Wikipedia entry for "Bank Holiday,". For example:

Hayes' speech: "in 1871, the first legislation relating to bank holidays was passed when the banker and politician, Sir John Lubbock, introduced the Bank Holidays Act 1871."

Wikipedia: "In 1871, the first legislation relating to bank holidays was passed when Liberal Politician and Banker, Sir John Lubbock introduced the Bank Holidays Act 1871"

But, hey, he added a couple of words! It's bad enough that Hayes was too lazy to write his speech. But he even plagiarized the idea, from students, of changing words just a tiny bit to make himself feel better about it. [ePolitix via the Wikipedian, Image via Edge Foundation]