Do Labour MPs have faith in Brown's response to the crisis?
Peter Hoskin 6:22pm
The Standard's keen-eyed Paul Waugh has already flagged it up, but it's still worth highlighting Frank Field's assessment of the PBR in his latest blog post. Even coming from Labour's insurrectionist-in-chief, some of the remarks are surprisingly cutting. Take this passage, for instance:
Or this:"Will the package work? I dearly hope so, but I doubt it. It is not just the size of the injection of demand that troubles me. It is also the means by which that increased demand is being delivered to consumers.At the end of yesterday’s emergency Budget I was left with a flat feeling in that the Chancellor’s presentation hardly enthused backbenchers, let alone consumers. Only part of the reason for this feeling was that most of the package had already been spun over the previous few days (whatever happened to that pledge of abolishing spin?). It wasn’t due only to the Chancellor’s flat delivery. It was also partly a response to the Tory presentation being better than certainly I had expected."
"The [rescue] package therefore raised some fundamental questions about the Government’s competence in running a crisis economy. Its lack of action on the 10p raises the most fundamental questions about its moral purpose."
And Field even ends with the observation that "the intellectual debate is moving towards the Tories".
Now, it's easy to dimiss this as typical of a Labour backbencher who's been one of Gordon Brown's most outspoken, party-internal detractors for years. But a little snippet from Ben Brogan's latest blog post suggests that Field isn't the only Labour MP with doubts about the so-called fiscal stimulus. He writes that "Ministers privately admit the chances of the rescue package working are less than 50pc". The worry for Brown is that this doubt reflects continued uncertainty over both his leadership and the direction he's taking the party. Watch this space.
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Comments
Andy Leeds
November 26th, 2008 6:49pmComes as no surprise. The whole package is a load of rubbish.
golfwidow
November 26th, 2008 6:59pmAlistair Darling seemed less than pleased to be in the chamber this afternoon. I rewound my Sky box to make sure I hadn't misheard him muttering "Oh, for God's sake", when he was interrupted by a Conservative MP (whose name escapes me)seeking confirmation from the Speaker that MPs could indeed vote on the measures as just suggested by Darling. I had not misheard. Nor do I expect to see it recorded in Hansard!
TGF UKIP
November 26th, 2008 7:14pmAs one who usually revels in a narrowing of the Tory lead, even I am sceptical of the YouGov poll today. As I have previously posted, so subdued did the Labour back and front benches seem on Monday as the scale of the borrowing and debts rolled in, that if the polls reverse their movement of recent weeks and head back towards the Tories, then Gordon could well find himself back where he was in the Summer - under threat again.
Frank Field was today regretfully analytical, if the weekend polls show a significant move towards the Tories, expect Charles Clarke to be thunderous.
Jim
November 26th, 2008 7:38pmThere is no rescue package.
NOT putting up vehicle tax is dresed up as a "give away"?
putting up fuel duty?
putting up duty on cigs and drink? (except whisky of course - made in Scotland....)
knocking 2.5% of VAT? When many of us are trying to decide whether to heat one room in our house or eat this week?
Brown was going to have to borrow £118 billion anyway after 11 years of uncontrolled spending and bizarre foreign aid schemes (He gives aid to India and it has its own space program? He gives aid to China ffs? He's giving another £8 billion to "educate the world"?)
The "rescue package" is smoke and mirrors, pure spin to explain the appalling debt spiral we are now disappearing into.
In the US Obama is already talking about looking hard at what government spending can be axed - are we going to cancel ID cards? defer the NHS computer system? cancel the quangos? turn the tap off on the £70 billion spend on management consultants?
Our government has delusions of adequacy.
All we can do now is pray.
oldtimer
November 26th, 2008 7:40pmI have posted before that the VAT reduction is stupid - which is a harsh judgment. It is stupid because, apart from being another waste of taxpayers money, it does not deal with two problems:
(1) the unwillingness, or equally likely, the inability of the banks to lend and rebuild their capital ratios as required by the FSA in their "drive by shooting" of the banks as it was described by one participant and
(2) the deleveraging of private debts, an obvious response to the propect of future tax increases and uncertain future job prospects.
The Conservatives have made suggestions to deal with the first of these. No politician can offer anything to deal with the second. Many people in the private sector are now fearful of what the future has in store. There will therefore be, I believe, a significant shrinkage in demand in the domestic economy.
TrevorsDen
November 26th, 2008 8:03pm"the rescue package working" ... by what criterion do we judge that the rescue package has worked?
Poly Toynbee would be happy to see 3 million unemployed. Is that success?
If we avoid 'deflation' ? Is that success? And if we do who is to say we would have avoided deflation anyway?
These measures are aimed at averting some vague undefined problem in the future.
Was it the Red Queen who said words mean what I want them to mean. Seems an appropriate analogy as we look at what the world is like down Browns rabbit hole.
JimBob
November 26th, 2008 8:31pm50%? 0 more like
The economic problems aren't going to go away until Brown owns up to the fact that it is debt that is the real problem. Until they come up with some realistic plans for reducing UK debt, the pound will dive and the cost of public borrowing will soar. Not that Brown is too bothered-2009 counts as 'long term planning' for him now.
Travis Bickle
November 26th, 2008 9:43pmI don't know what is more incredible ; that serious economic heavyweights (as they try to paint themselves) followed up their missing the consequence of 10p tax abolition by not twigging that putting up alcohol tax would hit the Scotch Whisky industry, or that they are falling over themselves to do something about it
Mister Jabberwock
November 26th, 2008 9:53pmIt was my "associate" Humpty Dumpty
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”"The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”"The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that’s all.”
hadrian
November 26th, 2008 10:18pmPolly Toynbee, the Guardian haridan, may think 3 million unemployed is fair do's- so let's hope she ends up one of them....maybe she could go and spend some time in one of her socialist utopias- except there are none left, unless Broon ultimately reduces the UK to some recessive socialist realm.
RODEST
November 26th, 2008 11:54pmFor quite a while my thourghts have been that if Brown does not call an early election he will face a leadership challenge.
Now that Paliment is broadcast live we will see some fantastic reality TV, like the previous Labour government; spitting and snarling as I recall.
DavyB
November 27th, 2008 9:27amOne of the weasels in the PBR that has just come out and has not yet been fully reported, is that the Government plan to raise the income tax rate for trusts to 45% irrespective of how much the trust is worth or how much income it generates per annum.
This is a further covert attack by the government on UK based trusts making them now ridiculously unattractive as a vehicle to hold assetsmaking a further flight of capital offshore almost certain.
This rise will generate no significant revenue, and will lead more and more wealth to be invested offshore, I honestly can't understand Labour's thinking on this!
Nicholas
November 27th, 2008 9:34amhadrian, East Germany, Democratic Peoples Republic of, circa 1960 is everything our Leftist friends yearn for.
JONNY
November 27th, 2008 10:30amFurther to JIM - there is one more to add to his list of desirable/necessary/unavoidable cuts.
Uh-uh - here goes -
The new Trident Missile Programme.
How many billions is that going to save I wonder?
Now I've said it and I'm sure you won't like it. But had to get it off my chest because it won't be used anyway.
Jim
November 27th, 2008 11:16amJonny
Agreed - and what sensible government would continue with plans to spend on the olympics in 2012 (£15 billion? £20 billion?) when we are having to borrow £118 billion just to keep our heads above water?
The only sane course of action is to withdraw and let a country which already has the infrastructure take it over - China? Greece?
Madness......!
strapworld
November 27th, 2008 11:21amNicholas, surely they have gone beyond yearning?
Think of all the instututions which have been greatly devalued over the past ten years.
The Monarchy.
Church of England.
Our History - the teaching of.
The Police. Once the finest in the world.
Local Government.
Education.
Engineering.
Ship Building.
The Health Service.
Armed Services - lack of equipment but keeping them AWAY from the country to avoid a military coup!!
It would not surprise me if this crowd of incompetents and malcontents voted to extend their Government because of the World Economic Situation and threats from terrorism!
Who and what could stop them?
Informed
November 29th, 2008 11:28amWho paid for Brown's teeth and face job?