Paul Waugh reports Chris Huhne’s quip that coalition government means adopting “the extremely nutritious diet of eating your words”.
If the line sounds familiarm it’s because it is. David Cameron used almost exactly the same phrase at his first press conference with Nick Clegg. Asked about the coalition, he said:
[I]f it means swallowing some humble pie, and if it means eating some of your words, I cannot think of a more excellent diet.
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But both were borrowing from Winston Churchill. It was the British Bulldog who first declared:
Over a long political career I have been forced to eat many words. On the whole I found it a wholesome diet.
Let’s wait and see if the Lib Dems, who warned of the Tories’ “VAT bombshell” during the election, are happy to eat their words on Tuesday.
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