PMQs live blog
Peter Hoskin 11:47amStay tuned for live coverage of PMQs from 1200 onwards.
1203: A breaking news item worth mentioning: Gordon Brown's buddy, James Crosby, has resigned his role at the FSA.
1204: Here's Brown now. He faces a question on Crosby, and responds: "It's right that James Crosby resigned his role."
1205: Cameron now. "They can even plant questions at short notice". He leads on Crosby too. "Does the PM accept that it was a serious error of judegment on his part to appoint [Crosby] in the first place." On the offensive from the off. Brown responds by citing a KPMG report.
1208: I bet Brown's wishing Crosby had resigned half-an-hour later. Cameron brings up the issue of the banker's knighthood. Brown says Crosby is no longer an economic adviser for the Government.
1209: Cameron: "Why can't the PM ever admit an error of judgement" . Tory MPs are taunting Brown with cries of "Sorry!"
1210: This is fiery stuff. Brown's getting red-faced over the "do nothing" Tories.
1211: This is surely going to guarantee Cameron some airtime later. He pins a serious of charges on Brown, including "Who set up the failed regulatory system - he did!" The Tory benches are loving this. Labour MPs look sheepish.
1214: Brown on the VAT cut: "The Tories are opposing a measure that would see families have £20 a month more in their pocket."
1215: Cameron responds to Brown's shadow shadow Chancellor jibe, by pointing out that Ken Clarke voted against the VAT cut: "Why can't the PM get his facts straight?"
1215: Cameron: "Incompetence + arrogance = 2 million unemployed". Hard-hitting attack line.
1216: Brown hits back over regulation, quoting Cameron calling him the "Great Regulator". The implication being that Cameron wants less regulation. Given the Crosby resignation, I'm not sure Brown will get much out of this attack.
1218: Clegg's on the offensive too, aksing what - despite all the government announcements - Brown has actually achieved. Brown responds with the usual waffle about global problems etc.
1220: Backbench questions now. Brown on bonuses: "We know there are thousands of bankers who rely on their bonuses, but we've also got to look out for the public..."
1222: Planted question on what Brown will do to safeguard jobs in the North East. Allows him to mention a meeting of the National Employment Panel this morning.
1224: "Does the PM think that the [public transport problems] in London [during the snow] were down to an act of God or down to Boris Johnson?". Predictably, Brown bangs on about Tory cuts: "This is what the public can expect from a Tory government..."
1228: Questions on injured soldiers, medium-sized business and renewable energy.
1231: Brown: "It's time to invest in the future ... we are investing in appreticeships." He repeats a Balls-created Brownie that the Tories would cut apprenticeships.
1233: Given the controversy over Heathrow, Brown's jibe that the Tories seem "completely disinterested in the environment now" will raise a few eyebrows.
1234: Questions on prisons and non-EU immigration. Brown brings up the points system.
1235: And that's it. Expect my verdict shortly.
VERDICT: Oh, how Brown must have rued the resignation of Sir James Crosby just before PMQs started. It gave Cameron the perfect lead-off, and the Tory leader made a good hand of it. There was a real sense that Dave was holding Gordon to account today, and he did so with vim and vigour. The fiery session left Brown looking battered.
UPDATE: As golfwidow mentions below, Nick Robinson's reporting that Downing St may have intentionally arranged James Crosby's resignation for before PMQs. If so, you can see their thinking: that it would wrongfoot Cameron and deflect "Why is he still in his job?" type questions. But, to my mind, it didn't play out like that. Cameron used the resignation to make Brown's association with Crosby look even more questionable.
Previous
Henry Rogers
February 11th, 2009 12:20pm Report this commentCome on Speccie,
It's 20 past 12 and very little sign of life!
Mark
February 11th, 2009 12:48pm Report this commentCrosby's resignation was timed to wrong-foot Cameron. Brown has tried this one before - making an announcement just before noon. I missed PMQs but it sounds as though it didn't work this time for Brown.
C Powell
February 11th, 2009 12:48pm Report this commentAll great fun no doubt. But now let's have a bit more forensic work done on the HBOS/FSA story.
If Moore blew the whistle and this was investigated, there should be an internal report or one commissioned from external lawyers/accountants? Was this provided to the FSA? If not, what (if anything) was said to them? Did the FSA do its own investigation or merely review HBOS's investigation? How did it get itself comfortable with HBOS's replacement for the Head of Risk? The FSA (and HBOS) should have internal papers on this and a request should be made for these, assuming of course that there was a real investigation....
Someone should get digging.
Peter Wilson
February 11th, 2009 12:49pm Report this commentI agree Cameron was more animated and full of vigour, but PMQs every week seems to be like a bad re-run of the week before.
Cameron still can't quite pin the economy on Brown, asks about boom / bust, Brown recites do-nothing and global downturn phrases.
It's quite a damming on PMQs I thought that on a day of news Crosby's resignation, unemployment news and the deep recession admission for the BoE that the most interest aspect of the Daily Politics show was an argument on Titian's age - was he born in 1490 or 1487 or whatever.
golfwidow
February 11th, 2009 12:52pm Report this commentNick Robinson doesn't agree with your view on Crosby's resignation, believing that Downing St made sure it happened BEFORE PMQs. I find his take on it more persuasive than yours.
Thomas Cussans
February 11th, 2009 12:53pm Report this commentMore than battered: he looked half dead. I seriously thought he might collapse at several points. He mangled words, he repeated himself, he stumbled, he stuttered. You could practically see his brain shorting out.
In short, a man teetering on the very rim of the precipice.
Just one more push ...
Barnaby Allsop
February 11th, 2009 12:56pm Report this commentA star performance from Cameron and all the more enjoyable for seeing the Labour front bench looking so browbeaten.
strapworld
February 11th, 2009 1:18pm Report this commentThe people are now of the opinion that Brown is as much to blame as the bankers, of that I am certain.
Cameron should calm down and ask his questions with a far more measured approach. He mangled his words on two occasions today.
If he acted as a Statesman, The Future Prime Minister, The Leader of the Country and, copying Hague in asking six different questions, slowly but with measured venom, he will score far more highly and make Brown to be the incompetent he is.
Short the UK
February 11th, 2009 1:18pm Report this commentI have expected Gordon Brown to have a nervous breakdown. Each time I see him on the telly he looks closer to total implosion. I feel sorry for the guy, his whole ideology and the rubicon of his rise to be PM has been but tissue paper and now that the economy is sneezing all his delusions are gnawing away in his mind. His memory must be causing him painful flashbacks. I'm sure he cries deeply at times, as he melds the emotional and the rational parts into one. When they merge he will break. It is sad to see such a flawed man disintegrate on the public stage. My one regret is that Tony Blair will hide himself in Catholicism: he is the more wicked of the two. Blair is evil and Brown is stupid.
Ivy Eileen
February 11th, 2009 2:39pm Report this commentShort - "Blair will hide himself in Catholicism".
Blair and his conscience are in the final resort a matter between him and the Almighty (or is it HIM and the almighty ? )...... but am I the only Catholic who feels distinctly embarrassed at Blair having joined up ? Wonder if Guido has a view.
Kevyn Bodman
February 11th, 2009 3:02pm Report this commentShort the UK,
1)You have an even lower opinion of Blair than I do. And I think you may, in fact, be right.
2)Thanks for the tip about Cynicus Economicus some time back.
Ivy Eileen
February 11th, 2009 4:21pm Report this commentO/T, but the Temple to a Monumental Ego that is RBS's relatively new headquarters outside Edinburgh is on the site of Edinburgh's former psychiatric hospital.
Tom Pride
February 11th, 2009 5:25pm Report this commentShort the UK (Apologises that this is a bit off subject)
I followed up your suggestion re Cynicus Economicus as well. His idea gels with what I had been thinking. The upheavals we are experiencing are a sign of arbitrage in global labour markets.
Globalisation was not in the main an expansion of free trade but a transfer of manufacturing and mobile service capacity to lower wage rate countries. Hence the huge trade surpluses and deficits as there was no possibility of balanced trade as traditionally understood.
Why should an Indian or Chinaman earn one tenth of the pay when substituting for a person in a developed country who did the exact same job? How do we pay for their labour when labour substitution occurs rather than trade? The consequence of globalisation as opposed to free trade must be a convergence of labour costs and standards of living. I thought this would occur slowly and predominately through exchange rates. I am taken aback that we are seeing massive wealth destruction and now cuts in pay (JCB, KPMG 4 day week and now Bentley and others). These cuts could be permanent and just a foretaste of what is to come. Imagine the turbulence if public sector pay has to follow private sector pay down.
For once Balls could be right. The Western electorates could get rather angry.
Short the UK
February 11th, 2009 6:20pm Report this commentKevyn,
This guy is well worth reading for an American view on the markets. He really explains debt/credit brilliantly:
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/
Chuck Unsworth
February 11th, 2009 6:57pm Report this comment@ Ivy Eileen
"but am I the only Catholic who feels distinctly embarrassed at Blair having joined up ?"
No.
But "embarrassed" is a totally inadequate description.
Andy
February 11th, 2009 8:07pm Report this commentI wish somebody would ask Brown to give figures for his "VAT cuts saves families £20 a week" claim. Since the cut, our family has saved less than two pounds in total, largely because most of what we buy is not VAT-rated!
Back to top