PMQs report: Brown gets away with it

Jackie M Miller

Yes, Brown is getting away with it but only, I think, for the time being. If the package announced today doesn't work - and I hope for all our sakes that it does - then Brown will have handed Cameron the keys to Downing Street on a velvet cushion. If it does work, however, then all Cameron has to do is wait for the mood of national panic to subside and then say, 'Right. Now let's get back to the topic of how we got into this mess in the first place.'

And, while it's infuriating to see Brown looking so insufferably pleased with himself, it's also slightly encouraging. It suggests a complacency for which, in the real world outside the Westminster playground, he has no grounds.

David

I actually rather admire Cameron for trying to take the statesmanlike approach to all this. The problem is he's doing it with the wrong person. I hope he learns a lesson from this that Brown doesn't do bipartisanship. I find myself agreeing with Clegg's line about the lifeboats. Cameron should take note of the way Brown behaved when he tried to adopt a more cordial approach, and beat him over the head with an oar next week.

Dean

Agree with many of your comments, but I don't think it is tenable to blame Brown for turning the 'debt tap' on. Asset price inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,so the fundamental cause of our present predicament is excessively lax monetary policy by independent central banks such as the Fed and BoE. This happened because inflation targeting focused on the consumer price index, rather than wider measures of asset inflation. So interest rates weren't raised when they should have been to end the house price boom. There needs to be a complete re-think by central banks of how they target anti-inflationary policy. But loose monetary policy was greatly exacerbated by reckless, profit-driven lending practices by banks. European banks have done slightly better because the ECB's overall monetary stance has been tighter, but this was insufficient to prevent a general degradation of credit assessment standards. Politicians undoubtedly benefited from the bubble, and did little or nothing to stop it - and hence share culpability - but I think the main blame must lie with the central banks and the banking system as a whole. The damage, as everyone now knows, has been catastrophic and will take several years to repair. The most obvious political casualty, however, is not Brown but the ideology of neo-liberalism (unlimited faith in free markets)that emerged in the early 1980s and acquired complete ideological hegemony after the end of the cold war. Conservatives need to be alert to the fact that the Labour Party is well placed to exploit this, given its prejudice against free enterprise. The response from the Tories should be to argue (as before) the case for free markets, but accept that markets need to be managed effectively if they are to serve the needs of society. If he plays his cards right, Cameron should be well placed to make this case, having already largely freed his party from the grip of lunatic free market fundamentalism.

Mike, Brighton

His card is marked. The dust will settle and history will judge him. I really do hope he doesn't get away with it.
Time for DC to stop this bipartisan consensus nonsense and show some anger about the economic mess we are in.
Did Labour show bipartisan support in 1992? No

My fear is that in the spring next year Brown will call a cut n run election with the full connivance of the BBC, running as the experienced hand to sort out the economy. Its a deceit that might just work and put off the electoral reckoning for another 5 years.

Tiberius

With his luck, it is still quite extraordinary how much Brown has managed to wreck his premiership.

The Tories can only wait for time to calm down his false appearance as an Action Man PM.

I bet Brown wishes he could call the election no one predicted.

Hysteria

Yup - good analysis - I reckon this is going to be saving of Brown and by extension the Socialist movement. Popular myth will have it that this mess is caused by capitalism - we are doomed to more centrist socialist policies from whichever set of "leaders" get elected.

Depressing.............

Nic Ralphs

Actually I've been saying the same things about Brown myself for a very long time, and by the way why has the media been silent on yet another example of Labour kicking the poor- that is to say, the changes they made to the right to buy scheme in 2004.
Here's something that I think sums him up, though I apologise for my lack of poetic skill:
This is the story of Gordon Brown,
Who thinks his financial skill is renowned,
Puts his PFI debt
Round our grandchildren's necks,
And taxes us into the ground.
He said: "Buy a house!
(though poor as a church mouse
and you've no chance of paying it down)".
He broke all the banks,
Is he thick as two planks?
Now our national debt is unsound.
He sold the gold cheap,
And we really could weep,
The man really is such a clown.
As I think you can see,
He makes 2+2, three,
And petrol costs more than a pound.
Our pensions are gone,
But he's still number one,
'Cause Labour won't take off his crown.
We're sick of this stuff,
All nonsense and fluff,
(And he's foisted us with eco-towns).
Please take him away,
He really can't stay,
We've all had enough of his frown.
But this country is great,
It's never too late,
Election day will soon come round.

Austin Barry

Brown has seemingly played a blinder - although it was either swim or drown - now he can quote Eliot: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all." Our response remains the same: two words.

Ian C

All the lines that are warreanted are far better saved up for the next election, or when this is clearly over. Brown will have the same problem that the Republicans are currently facing in America - that of incumbent when the system was bet away and all have been asked to pay for it. We will be feeling it by then, which we are not yet, although we are watching it come towards us in a way none of us have ever experienced.

Bocephus

Now that the Tories have done their bit and supported today's action, rightly or wrongly, it is time to get back to kicking the living daylights out of Brown. He cannot preside over this disaster and be allowed to get away with it. Why is this not being seen as a humiliating failure of Browns years in office? At the press conference this morning only the Sky reporter brought this up. Brown last remark to Cameron at PMQ's showed that he was not above points scoring even on this day of all days.

All this chit chat about banks needing to give mortgages to "hard working families" is beginning to sound a little like the pressure US lawmakers put on US banks, which caused the sub prime disaster in the first place.

All aboard the merry-go-round.

Short the UK

I thought Brown looked ill today and I wonder if he is having a nervous breakdown, as he comes to acknowledge, to his consciousness that he has really screwed it up. That he really believed the bubble king (Dr. Greenspan) and it was one hell of an acid trip. Christ, how his mind must be turning - the agony, the vanity, the remorse and the solitude. He brought his beloved country to the brink. One good thing, the Scots will nay to be keen on the SNP, as they must surely realise that we need to stick together. Scotland would be like Iceland if they had gone alone. Wee Alex must be dithering in his wee brain.

Nick Kaplan

I’m begging to lose patience with Cameron. Does he not understand that in the UK we have an adversarial style of politics? We are not in the US; the government doesn’t need the support of the opposition to pass reforms. The job of the Conservatives (or any opposition in the UK) is to highlight potential flaws in the government’s plans and to offer an alternative, it is not to suck up to a government that has been consistently useless for the last ten years.

seb

‘It’s unfair to say Brown “won” PMQs because Cameron decided not to play.’ Yes, and with twenty months to go before a general election, it’s also pointless for Cameron to hammer on about the public debt or alternative tax and public spending policies.
Those who have indicated an intention in 2010 to vote Tory in recent polls hardly mind if, for the time being, Cameron plays Attlee to Brown’s pantomime Churchill. As for Labour’s core twenty five or thirty per cent, there is little or no evidence to suggest this group of voters is either remotely concerned with understanding the extent of the government’s appallingly profligacy or with blaming the economic crisis in part or in whole on Brown or Darling. Whether the crisis abates or continues, Brown loses. An economic upturn will see voters turning against Labour for one of a dozen other reasons, immigration policy being a prime example. A prolonged slump will convince voters that they have nothing to lose by ditching Labour.

C Powell

Well, it's for the Tories to make these points. I'm not sure now is the time, simply because people won't listen: they're too worried whether their savings will evaporate overnight. But they do understand that the Government has been in charge these last 11 years and so the Tories need to keep plugging away at this and saying what they will do in future to make sure lending is responsible. Remember this means that borrowing will also have to be responsible i.e. no using equity in your house to fritter away on holidays. Will people like that message? Will they like hearing it from the likes of Osborne and Cameron? David Davies (who knows what hard times are like) would get that message across better. At any event, the Tories need to do some hard thinking: assuming that Brown will implode without any hard work on their part is not (and never has been good enough).

Chris Rose

Why did we have to endure two days of financial melt-down before the Government acted? Why was Darling so indecisive in his statement on Monday? So that the big announcement could be made on the morning of PMQs?

I rather think so.

Bocephus

Another thing. I've heard this called Brown's "Falklands Moment." But hold on a moment, didn't the Foreign Secretary resign over his mishandling of the lead up to the Falklands War?

In America Bush (and McCain) are getting kicked all over the place, here the media tells us what a great job Brown is doing. Does anyone seriously believe if this had been John Major the media would be telling us what a strong leader he was?

HJ

Dean,

Why is it 'not tenable' to blame Brown for turning the debt tap on?

- Brown set the remit for the BoE
- Brown changed the inflation measure from RPI (which at least included some element of housing cost) to CPI
- The FSA and the regulatory environment was designed by Brown.
- Brown fed the boom with excessive borrowing and public sector inflation (a significant factor in this whole episode considering that the public sector spends 43% of GNP). Public sector inflation is not measured directly by the CPI, but it's still inflation. This is not to mention robbing our pension plan investments to fund current spending.

Fundamentally it isn't free markets that caused the current situation - it was factors entirely caused by, or under the control of, the government.

Fraser Nelson

Dean, it was Brown who set up the MPC and gave it the remit. The BoE isnt independent, and can only work to a program punched in at Downing St. Seb, while I agree on timing it takes a very long time to establish a narrative. Look how Obama is brilliantly using this in the US - a lesson to the Tories. I'm not blaming Cameron or Osborne but I do wonder if they can go for the kill on teh economy when they think the time is right.

Trafalgar

Right now everyone's in a state of panic about their own finances and the last thing we want to see is our politicians fighting and bickering on the 10 second slot we see on the 10 o' clock news.

Cameron is correct to keep his powder dry while every single one of Brown's chickens comes home to roost.

mart

If the Tories don't spell out the "case for the prosecution" now, they will lose any moral authority to raise it later.

C Powell

Who is giving advice to the Tories on economic matters / on regulatory matters? They need someone who really understands this stuff to give them the ammunition.

A small example: the FSA authorised ICESAVE and, presumably, approved the legally binding Terms and Conditions which are misleading about how the combination of the Icelandic guarantee scheme and the FSCS work. (And if they didn't, they should have done: perhaps the basis of an FoI request?) It is not true to say - as they did - that the FSCS tops up the balance to the guaranteed limit less what the Icelandic scheme pays. As we now know, it just pays the difference. A small but crucial difference because with the former a customer would get all their money back whereas with the latter the customer loses the first £16,000. How did ICESAVE get away with this given the FSA's focus on Treating Customers Fairly. The FSA was set up by Brown so if it doesn't do its job properly it's his - ultimate - responsibility, especially as he liked to take the credit.

Also why doesn't the FSA state that all passported firms must state how much money is in the compensation scheme in their home country so that savers can assess whether they can rely on them? This is a proposal which the Tories could consider.

But somebody needs to do the hard work behind the scenes to give them the ammunition they need. And they need to use it and be prepared to craft it into a bigger picture that we can all understand. Much more hard work needed from Dave and George. The game's changed: people are scared and if they're going to trust the Tories, they need to feel that they know what's going on and how they're going to fix it. Coining phrases like the "Age of Irresponsibility" is fine as far as it goes but it doesn't go far enough.

Dean

Fraser, we can all agree that this government is a total shambles, but the fact that Brown created the MPC and gave it its remit does not make him responsible for the very specific failure of the BoE, under its present Governor,to frame monetary policy around the need to control wider asset price inflation, rather than the narrow (and misleading) CPI measure. I'm not saying the Government were not grossly irresponsible in stoking the asset boom. But it's important to recognise that asset price bubbles CANNOT occur in the absence of an accomodating monetary policy; by definition, therefore, the BoE must bear a large share of the responsibility. Central banks generally need to re-think how they measure and target inflation. Of course, this doesn't mitigate Brown's responsibility for the current mess, but it simply won't do just to blame the Government. You also need to look at the role of central banks and regulators, as well as the perverse incentive structures operating within the major banks. HJ - I agree there has been a massive regulatory failure, but did Brown's creation of the FSA play a significant causal role in this? I doubt it. Having worked in financial regulation, I would say that the main causes were (i) complacency on the part of many regulators about the supposed efficacy of market forces and, related to this, (ii) a marked aversion, on the part of senior regulatory staff, to challenge banks' senior management effectively (not helped by the fact that many senior regulators take lucrative jobs in the private sector after stints at the regulator, creating an impossible conflict of interest). The prevailing mindset since the early 1990s has been that market practitioners always know best, so there is not really much point in trying to challenge or restrain them. This mindset will obviously disappear now, but it has done irreparable damage, not least to the cause of free enterprise, which has in fact always required strong, effective regulation and a robust institutional framework. What I find incredible is that people automatically assume you're left wing if you say this sort of thing. When I started my career in banking 20 years ago, it would have been regarded as a wholly uncontroversial statement of the obvious.

True Bred Pomponian

Brown and Darling are unimpressive, but Cameron and Osborne are worse. I always see David Milliband as a prep-school boy in short trousers, but alongside George Osborne he suddenly looks like the Senior Prefect.

Feeling let down.

Jesus H. Christ. What does it take for Cameron to get up and nail this mendacious person to the cross?
It's not rocket science. We're playing with people's lives here and all Cameron does is ask a couple of stupid questions. My bloody dog could have done better....and he ain't a poodle.
Get off your butt Dave and do what WE want you to do!!!!

John Miller

Having listened for 36 years to bankers smugly explaining that if you need money, they can't possibly lend it to you, having been told that money, "is just another commodity" and that loyalty to the bank doesn't count"if the business model is flawed", I am firmly in the camp saying "let the bastards sink". If what they were telling me and my clients was true, they should die by the sword. Assets don't disappear in times such as these, they just decrease in value. If a bank goes bust, another bank will buy it. Saying that you will keep the bubble afloat - as the whole of the world's "leaders" are saying- is to deny reality. They are so used to doing that - "oh, a no vote on the Lisbon Treaty doesn't really mean no if we say it doesn't" that when the truck hits them head on they can't recognise it.

If no one wants to buy my house because they don't have the money, there is no government in the world that will be able to push the price up.

None of the parties in this country, or indeed the world, have faced reality. At the end of this , the Asian tigers will feast themselves on the rotting flesh of our dying economiies.

Hysteria

Johm M - dead right - but all we hear is "let's print some money and get the party going again and then we'll be ok....."

I think not!

TrevorsDen

You would never guess that the Tories poll ratings went up 2% according to the Times they stand on 45%.

Look what sort of alternative do you want from Cameron?
TINA !! There is no alternative - or any available one is just as bad.
The opposition want to see Britain on the road to recovery - not disaster. Osborne was on the radio pointing out this is a rescue for the economy not the banks and the criticism will come in due course if this bail out does not find its way to the small businesses that need it. That should be the line - exposing any incompetence in administering the bale out.

And to the numpties who say 'hang the banks'. Peoples pensions are tied up in banks peoples pensions are tied up in the businesses that the banks finance. Peoples JOBS are tied up in the businesses financed by banks.
It is just plain pea-brained fatuous rubbish to wish the banks to hell in a basket.

Its going to be bad enough as it is.
The Titanic/lifeboat analogy is typically bad from Clegg.

We have hit the iceberg - the ship WILL sink it a mathematical certainty. The point is there are not enough lifeboats to go round. The steerage passengers are going to end up in the cold cold sea of recession.

seb

Fraser - Thanks for the response. A number of dismayed contributors have raised entirely valid points about the perceived timidity of an opposition front bench team that, for the moment, has held back from savaging the Prime Minister and the Chancellor and has failed to provide parliament or the electorate with any credible alternative proposals for future fiscal and public spending policy. As you were right to say, timing is everything. The American general election takes place early next month, not in early summer of 2010. Despite today’s part-nationalisation of several UK banks, the risk of a grave and prolonged recession in the UK remains high. The Tories are as aware as anyone in the land that they might soon be compelled to let us know what they plan to do about the legacy of Labour’s Tax Then Waste philosophy. Declaring war on Brown and Darling might be edifying enough in itself for those who delight in seeing Labour suffer. Until the trajectory of economic indicators becomes clearer, i.e. in 2009 and 2010, such a move might also be politically counter-productive. Current odds are 7/2 against a fourth Labour term. Saying the wrong thing to the voters this week or this month, both about the Labour government and about an alternative Tory economic strategy, could seriously alter those odds in Brown’s favour. How, precisely, the Tories should ‘go for the kill’ will inevitably be dictated by the state of the economy in late 2009. God alone knows what this will be.

hadrian

One thing Bocephus says IS striking- we have a generation of pampered, cushioned, wasted individuals who coast along largely on irresponsibility. Proof? Just look at the astoundingly banal, shallow, tawdry front pages of our charming tabloid press to see how complacent our cradle-to-the=grave generation can be! One thing's for sure- Brown's past recklessnes so cunningly concealed is going to come unstuck. And when it does the dream will end and no amount of spin will do our dour PM any good.

James Cherkoff

Cameron and Osborne's problem is not that they are supporting the government, it's tht they don't seem to have anything to add to the debate, which makes them looki like they don't understand the issues, as Vince Cable clearly does for example. Osborne looked and acted like a ghost in this PMQs.