Joe Biden, then senator, was one of the favorites for the Democratic nomination (File)
London:
When he first ran for the White House in 1987, Joe Biden’s candidacy was destroyed by a plagiarism dispute. But the British politician whose words he lifted paid a warm tribute to the newly elected US president.
Neil Kinnock, former leader of Britain’s main opposition Labor Party, told AFP that Biden’s qualities include “mature and wise calm, and that will serve the United States and indeed the world a great service. “.
“He has a difficult job under the current conditions of crisis,” Kinnock, who also served on the European Union’s executive board, said in an email.
“But he’s a really tough guy, and you can tell because he keeps on working and doesn’t continually proclaim his tenacity like the last one – what’s his name?”
Biden, then a senator, was one of the favorites for the Democratic nomination before the 1988 presidential election.
But during the 1987 campaign he was forced to step down after it emerged he had borrowed heavily, without attribution, from a speech given earlier that year by Kinnock as Labor leader.
Kinnock recalled his last meeting with Biden at the Democratic Senate office in 2007.
According to the email, Biden mockingly introduced the Welshman to his staff with the words: “My friends, meet my greatest speechwriter, Neil Kinnock!”
During that 2007 visit to Washington, Kinnock said they met later for a “convivial supper” and Biden told him that a promising senator called Barack Obama would likely become the next Democratic president.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t make a bet,” said Kinnock, invited by Biden to attend Obama’s inauguration in 2009, when Biden became vice president.
Experts on both sides of the Atlantic have predicted that Biden’s White House would be less friendly with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson than his populist colleague Donald Trump was.
Kinnock said Biden would “restore a relationship of mutual trust with the EU, value civil association with the UK without being effusive and show firmness in relations with China.”
He added that Russian President Vladimir “Putin, meanwhile, shouldn’t expect a friendly Christmas card” from Biden.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
