Clegg adopts the right level of cooperation

StephenDC

Cameron made a total mess of yesterday going on about bonuses when only a week before he has struck a much more sensible note.

Brown was right to stick it back in his face with interest.

The challenge now is what does he have to say thats distinctive. The strategy of adopting labour consensus policy and politics from the NHS to the environment looked a good one when you had youth and charm on your side.

But in a crisis people go for experience and that means if cameron is going to win he cant just ape new labour thinking

TrevorsDen

Oh really 'Stephen DC' --- then why is Brown going round today saying how angry his is with the banks (shock horror you would never have thought he has been in charge for 11 years) and how there must be no more bonuses?

Huh? If Cameron was such a numpty yesterday why is Brown following his lead today?

And tax cuts?

The Tories promised tax cuts (ie a freeze on Council tax) during their conference. A carefully judged plan - not a hose piping of more money the govt have not got - not another commitment to widen the basic govt structural deficit on top of all this emergency largesse.

Britain does need tax cuts - thats the way out of a recession but when Brown has pushed up our deficit to already unmanageable proportions then such cuts need to be funded from cuts and savings in govt spending. Is that what Clegg is proposing?

The Spectator and its juvenile hacks are running round in circles.

But hey I have every faith in Browns judgement - he is the one who hired Stephen Carter. He is the one who gave us 10p tax and then abolished it. He is the one who sold our gold he is the one who abolished ACT for our pensions industry and crucified pensions valuation in his 2004 Pensions Act.

biggestaspidistra

"The Spectator and its juvenile hacks"........ very funny.

Mack

Yeah yeah, that is why Clegg is such a great force in British politics. Not.

CS

***"The Spectator and its juvenile hacks"........ very funny.***

And drearily accurate. A butterfly sneezes in Western Samoa. Cue three articles on Coffee House saying how this is dangerous for Cameron and is an example of Brown's strategic genius.

Dalesman

Clegg was great yesterday. His best line was the one about "when a ship is sinking you send out the lifeboats. You don't argue about who sailed it into the iceberg, that can wait for another day".

He out did Cameron by a long way.

CS

In fact, I'm still waiting for a Coffee House retraction over the prediction of how Stephen Carter's hiring by Downing Street was a sign that Brwon was taking a firm grip at Number 10.

Is it that politicla bloggers spend so much time on the phone to the sort of people who claim to be in the know but have in reality never achieved anything of substance in their lives, that the slightest nod or hint acquires for them the drama of a 3 act tragedy?

Or maybe, if they didn't keep filling Coffee House with dire predictions which never come true, they fear that we'd all get on with our work.

Hereford

Yes I have to agree, there is a distinctly visible swing towards Brown in this magazine lately.

Is it about wanting to be on the winning side, rather than standing by your political principles?

Brown is a self serving venal, manipulative, truth stretching little meglomaniac. Nothing he does now will negate his incompetence or his duplicity in the past.

Giving him credit of any sort assists him in airbrushing out his responsiblity for where we are now.

John Page

In PMQs Brown mentioned tax rebates and the fuel allowance as if they were positives - and no one laughed.

CS

Hereford, no I think it's a combination of insecurity at 11 years (arguably 16 years) of the Tories being in the wilderness and a blank refusal to accept that, if one version of Conservatism gets crushingly rejected at 3 successive elections and a less ideological version then gets 10-15 point poll lead, it's just possible that the Tories are returning to reality.

Nicholas

I thought Clegg's performance was more to the mark for an opposition leader than Cameron's. Cameron is at his least effective when he tries to play the gentleman's club chivalry card to his opponents. It makes him look weak, is lost on the GBP and this mafia government don't deserve it. They are a bunch of nasty self-serving thugs led by the nastiest, most self-serving thug of all and deserve nothing but electoral annihilation.

Cameron's narrative, for all the keeping of his powder dry and giving Herr Braun room to walk off the edge of the stage, should be a constant subtle drip-drip reminder of which is the new nasty party, constantly reminding us of their lies, deceit and incompetence, their catalogue of people-hating measures which cover everything from repressive legislation, through pension-thieving to stifling small businesses with Euro-tape.

If he is going to pay the "black cloud in a suit" a complement during PMQs it should be one with a very hefty barbed sting in the tail.

Unfortunately, the Tories are just not getting the message across. If they think they can wait until an election campaign to drive home how bad a fourth term of the national socialist junta formerly known as "New Labour" would be they are making a really big mistake.

They also need a strategy for tackling the BBC. Open accusation of bias, undermining about the licence fee and leading a few home punches in interviews might help. Openly asking Andrew Marr during an interview why he demonstrates such a bias for New Labour in his interview techniques and whether he thinks that best serves a democracy might be a good start.

Hysteria

erm - CH once suggested a running tally of Brown Lies/Promises etc and a "look back" to see the current status.

Building on the comments by others above - maybe the Spectator team should publish the metrics about the accuracy (or otherwise) of their scoops and commentary???

TrevorsDen

"when a ship is sinking you send out the lifeboats. You don't argue about who sailed it into the iceberg, that can wait for another day".

This is a fatuous comment from Clegg.

As I have said before - the ship is sinking and there just are not enough lifeboats to go round - witness the govt not being willing to bale out local authorities in hock to Iceland. Not to mention the huge suffering this mess is going to put on pensioners.

The lifeboats would be a govt surplus (instead of a massive deficit) - this would help the economy with tax cuts and help for pensioners. This might still happen (after all there is an election due) but it will be at the expense of a shocking addition to the structural deficit.

Quite frankly given the Spectator obsessing over the fact that Brown can stand up and speak (a euphemism of course for 'lie') with out bumping into the furniture - then their nitpicking over Cameron's cautious stance in the face of a melt down in the markets is pathetic.

The markets today fell another 1.5% - because of impending recession - not to mention the LIBOR rate going up.

Any comments you Spectator Boys?.

Gordon

Oooh, isn't Clegover great - he's managed a couple of average performances on PMQs and one happened to be when Cameron messed up which suddenly makes him look good. Next week we'll be back to normal and Cleggybaby will be making Ming look interesting

Bocephus

Just seen Nick Robinson bowling under arm to Brown on BBC News. Cameron better change this bipartisan narrative pretty quickly we all saw how Brown did him over yesterday. He has got to get back to reminding people who presided over this disaster because the BBC won't. Remind everyone of Brown Mansion House speech of June last year- free market great, City wonderful, yada, yada, yada.

Brown has presided over the destruction of our banking system and last night he is making jokes about it much to the amusement of the TV news channels.

Ian C

If the unintended consequnce of Cameron's weka performance yesterday was to set Broon off downthe road of banging on about bonuses, it was a result. He may jsut have done it deliberately as a dummy pass in order to get him barking up a (wrong) tree he thought Cameron would be.

In the meantime Clegg's line about who put the ship on the rocks was a good one for all to use later when the panic is not to the fore. Cameron should certainly have been more aggressive along those lines and I would hope he will be from now on.