Iain Dale: False Claim of Coining Plastic Poll Tax

Sadly while Iain Dale may have invented Blogging, he is certainly not the inventor of the term plastic poll card as he claimed yesterday, and again back in 2006 when he puts the date of this achievement as "way back in July" (2005) when preparing a speech with David Davis for the second reading of the iD Cards Bill. In fact Davis gave the speech in question on 28 June 2005. I miss the magna carta and hearts and flowers of his own purple patch myself.

So it didn't pop into Iain's head as I first thought, with his July 2005 misinformation, when he read it in the leader column of The Spectator that year on July 2nd? In a witty reference to Tony Blair having his identity stolen by a bin diver? Or in the Times political correspondent David Charter writing on 29 June 2005? But we had York Lib Dems, aggregate on Bloggers4Labour, The Evening Standard, The BBC - all using the term before around 28 June 2006.

It wasn't just on everyone's tongue in those heady post-third-Tory-trouncing days of June 2005? Or then there were those pinkoes at the BBC again a couple of weeks before that? Or the cluster of press cuttings collected by LSE including at least one use of the phrase by one Liverpool Cllr Steve Radford, President of the Liberal Party, quoted in the Liverpool Daily Post of 1 June 2005.

But he may not be the first. Sightings please!

POSTSCRIPT 10:09: In fact Davis' speech refers to the LSE work. LSE being where that Steve Radford quote is mostly clearly referenced. On a web page with 18 May 2005 as its reference date.

GREAT MINDS ETC: Unity had the story and did a more observant search - finding September 2003 - a few minutes before we got there.

STOP PRESS 15:05: The BBC pinkoes web page uses this expression in a quote from David Davis so Dale may not be quite so wrong after all.