toby young and plaigiarism

The following extract is from Rob Long's 2005 book, 'Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke':

"Walk through the various spots in Los Angeles, and it's easy to spot the out-of-towners. They're the ones reading the trades in public. Out-of-towners think that Variety and the Reporter are filled with interesting news - stock quotes, reviews. box-office figures, that kind of thing - and, of course, they are. But the more practised reader, the Industry denizen, reads the trades for one reason and one reason only: to find out how much other people are being paid. And as this leads almost inevitably to violently obscene language, reading the trades is something to be done in private".

The following extract is from a piece which Toby Young - who is described on Wikipedia as "England's heretrosexual Truman Capote - wrote for the Guardian on the 16th January 2007:

"It's a well-known piece of Los Angeles lore that you can always spot the out-of-towners because they're the ones reading Variety and the Hollywood Reporter in public. Out-of-towners are under the impression that the trades carry all sorts of interesting information about showbusiness - stock quotes, reviews, box-office figures, etc - and that reading them in public will make them look like keen-eyed industry veterans. The only reason people actually employed in the entertainment business read the trades is to find out how much their competitors are being paid. That's why people read them in private - because discovering this information is nearly always accompanied by a string of expletives."

Young is one of our most famous journalists; author of several very successful books, a co-founder of the Modern Review and, besides writing for the Guardian, is the drama critic at the Spectator. It's well known that he is a bit of a shit, as the title of his best-selling book 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People' suggests, but that doesn't stop me being really really shocked at the extent of the plaigarism above - take a look line for line - it's quite amazing. It's pointed out without fanfare in this week's Private Eye, who apparently consider it par for the course: I don't - if I was editor of the Guardian I'd sack Toby Young for that.