Cameron pummels Brown in PMQs
Fraser Nelson 1:00pm
My, but David Cameron was good today. Assertive, contemptuous, energetic and all over Gordon Brown. Today's unemployment rise is the highest since records began (in 1972) so he had plenty of ammo. His point was strong and simple: nothing Brown has done is working.
Unemployment is getting worse, all the time. Did this not show how stupid it was for Brown to claim Britain was best-placed to weather the recession? I'll say this for Brown: he is nothing is not audacious. Britain's unemployment is better, he said, than France, German, Japan and this country called the "European Union" (whose figures are dominated by France and Germany). He should have added: "But give me time" - seeing as UK unemployment is rising faster than any developed country apart from Iceland.
Brown added that much is being done to help those on the dole - £1.3bn being spent that the Tories would not spend. Dividing line. (Brown later used that biblical analogy that St Gordon would not "walk on by the other side" unlike the wicked Conservatives. I do find this piety unbearable).
Cameron says the PM "is just incapable of admitting he got anything wrong" capitalising on the big Sorry he made on Friday. And this, of course, is the Tory tactical dividing line. It's a good deal more effective than something with "billion" on the end of it. Cameron lists the Brown initiatives that have helped literally no one so far: homeowners' support group, asset-backed security system etc. All useless.
Here Cameron is really on to something. He is deploying against Brown all the daft, usless inititaives he announced back in the autumn under the guise of "real help". These are doomed to failure: nothing can stop the contraction of the UK economy, and today's 2m unemployment will slide inexorably towards 3.5m. So Cameron can keep saying "your 'help' is useless" - what's more, it's a motif that will last him until polling day. as the public will see, from the jobs being lost all around them, it is true. As Cameron put it "ineffectiveness and hyperactivity is the worst possible combination."
Then Cameron introduced a new attack point. "We've just had the view from the bunker". He's saying this because, I suspect, he plans to do a tour of the UK over the next two weeks - a series of his Cameron Direct shows - while Brown broods in No10. So it makes a powerful juxtaposition: Cameron in the country, engaging with the public, and Brown (literally) meeting in a bunker with his so-called National Economic Council to discuss the economy. Fundamentally, Brown is a backroom politician, more at home hurling staplers in election HQ than on the stump. So this attack line has much power. It reveals a far wider truth. Cameron is at his happiest (and his best) talking to members of the public. Brown is at his happiest punching figures into a calculator. And we all know which skill is more valuable come election time.
Brown's attacks were based on his mendacious claim that the Tories propose cutting government spending - as I have blogged this is, alas, untrue. And he shouted about Osborne's inheritance tax cut as if this were somehow embarrassing. Let's not forget, this was perhaps the most popular Tory policy in the last five years. The more Brown shouts about this, the better.
The rest of PMQs was fairly boring. Clegg rather useless. He always looks as if he's just had his hair cut, and Chris Huhne always looks as if he's thinking "God, another week in the campaign and I'd have had him". How the LibDems must be anxious. Current polls suggest two thirds of them will lose their seats at the next election.
Nerds' corner
Cameron corrected Brown: the recession started in April, not July. What he means is that Q2 2007 (April, May and June) there was zero growth. A recession is technically defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, which only happened over Q3. I suspect the pedants would side with Brown here.
UPDATE: Sadie Smith has her own take on my take here.
Previous
GJTory
March 18th, 2009 1:28pm Report this commentFraser - I'm not sure the 'definition' of recession you quote is correct.
The 2 quarters definition, I think, comes from the NBER in the US, which defines business cycle turning points (and therefore recessions) in the US.
However, the '2 quarters' is really only a rule of thumb. Indeed, the US economy was still growing in Q1 and Q2 2008 - but the NBER defined the US recession as starting from Q4 2007 because it looked at other factors, such as housing starts and retail sales, and concluded that the recession started before GDP as a whole started to contract.
This is what makes Brown's claims about the US recession starting before the UK recession particularly absurd.
Firstly, his 2 quarters definition is not a definition, its just a rule of thumb that has been interpreted as a definition by the British Media and then by British politicians.
Secondly, if you do use the 2 quarters rule of thumb as a definition, then the UK and US entered recession at the same time - Q3 2008
Chris P
March 18th, 2009 1:38pm Report this commentRe Nerds Corner - I thought the ONS revised their figures to -0.1%
Wily Trout
March 18th, 2009 2:02pm Report this commentCameron should have a close look at the number of small businesses struggling because the banks won't advance credit, even against evidence of advance orders. There is real anger and frustration out here that the hind leg of our enterprise and wealth creation is being hobbled.
Oscar
March 18th, 2009 2:03pm Report this commentDave's back! What a relief. Your country needs you.
michael m
March 18th, 2009 2:04pm Report this commentFraser
Has anyone noticed what is happening to the pound? That's the real verdict on this phoney lot
Fraser Nelson
March 18th, 2009 2:07pm Report this commentThis is why I love CoffeeHouse! You guys rule.
Chris P, I can't find that - in Q4 they still had it at 0% but this may have changed. Link: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/gdpbrief0109.pdf
If you guys are feeling especially helpful, feel free to start on the prototype of our recession inquiry. https://spectatorinquiry.pbwiki.com/
TrevorsDen
March 18th, 2009 2:35pm Report this commentTheoretical definitions are fine but zero growth is no growth. To any logical conclusion the recession started at the end of growth - if it is followed by 2 quarters of decline then that whole period is recession.
I am suspicious of these growth calculations - the real economy, and the tax take, has not improved in line with what you would have expected from these figures.
In terms of relative unemployment - just how do different countries calculate unemployment? Anyone? The UK has been busy for years with ruses to take people out of the unofficial figures.
Can anyone point out just what the figures are for working age but not in employment?
As a service I in turn can point to the latest news from SKY.
Brown has just been on with a new job creation scheme.
The govt are going to fund a plan to raise the Titanic.
Asked why, Brown said he wanted to find out more about the band that played on until the end.
Rob
March 18th, 2009 2:36pm Report this commentWere you watching the same PMQs that I was?
Once again, Cameron threw aside the rules of the House - this time by using unparliamentary language - so that he could get his soundbite in for the 6 o'clock news.
Cameron wasn't really landing any killer blows. Seems that the grassroots agree: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2009/03/pmqs-blog-from-noon.html#more
Oor Wullie
March 18th, 2009 2:44pm Report this commentRe unemployment figures, I thought Cameron should have said they were phoney too, since they don't include the millions "on benefits" for illnesses real and imagined.
Might have given Dennis Skinner apoplexy--not a bad thing.
Paul B
March 18th, 2009 2:44pm Report this commentI especially enjoyed the part when DC beat up Skinner. I used to quite like the Beast, I found him amusing, but of late hes become an ill mannered, unamusing, boring bully. Not before time he got a taste of his own medicine, and like most bullies, he didnt enjoy it. Game,set, match.
oldtimer
March 18th, 2009 2:53pm Report this commentThe BBC`s Nick Robinson gave a curious verdict on PMQs, saying Cameron lost the exchanges because of the "phoney" jibe. This view was not shared by Andrew Neill and guests in Brussels. It seems that the BBC is ultra touchy about the Cameron idea to freeze the licence fee and is trying to get its digs in whenever and however it can. Iain Dale has also noted that Conservative shadow ministers do not get invited onto BBC political programmes these days.
I liked the Myners joke - it even had Nick Brown, the Labour chief whip, heaving with scarcely repressed laughter. Skinner had a face like thunder. Do Skinner and Nick Brown not get on with each other?
But overall it reminded me why I rarely bother to watch any more.
David Bouvier
March 18th, 2009 2:58pm Report this commentThe "two quarters" definition is to filter out spurious blips. A spurious blip is very likely to be canceled out by an opposite blip the next period.
But presumably once you have positively identified that a recession signal has been detected you would time the start of the recession to the start of the decline in GDP.
The time it started does not have to be the same as the time you knew it had started.
rmh
March 18th, 2009 3:11pm Report this commentI though Dave absolutley monstered him.
This has as I have been waffling on for ages about the feel of 79 or 97 about it......
A tsunami of support for the opposition.....
Oscar
March 18th, 2009 3:54pm Report this commentRob - you mean the Labour trolls on ConservativeHome are out in force today. Shows how running scared you lot are!
DavidK
March 18th, 2009 4:22pm Report this commentAccording to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/4807896/Recession-is-already-longer-lasting-than-thought.html
Q2 2008 was revised from 0% to -0.02%. Can't find the source statistic though, in any case 0.02% is academic. We seem to be in a deep Repression (combination of Recession & Depression) which no-one voted for.
Dorothy Wilson
March 18th, 2009 4:25pm Report this comment"Were you watching the same PMQs that I was?
Once again, Cameron threw aside the rules of the House - this time by using unparliamentary language - so that he could get his soundbite in for the 6 o'clock news."
Absolutely. The rebuke over the use of the "unparliamentary language" was a non-event. In any case, how can anyone take a rebuke from Speaker Martin seriously? He's not exactly known for his impartiality is he?
As far as Brown's jibe about Conservatives cuts in public spending are concerned, someone should take up the point that cuts in expenditure do not necessarily mean cuts in services. They should actually mean that those services have to be run more efficiently.
Brown sounds more and more like an old 78 record with the needle stuck in the groove - repeating the same thing over and over again.
cityboozer
March 18th, 2009 6:01pm Report this comment"As far as Brown's jibe about Conservatives cuts in public spending are concerned, someone should take up the point that cuts in expenditure do not necessarily mean cuts in services. They should actually mean that those services have to be run more efficiently."
Absolutely, Dorothy!
The proper line here is: Millions of families around the country are making economies. It is an insult to everyone who has moved the weekly shop from Waitrose to a German discounter but is still putting healthy food on the table for their family to suggest that it is impossible to reduce public spending without hurting service delivery.
Athesius the Facilitator
March 18th, 2009 7:20pm Report this commentFraser: Ever so pleased you enjoy some of the comments by the coffee house bloggers.
I thought the PM got a pasting today. He is such a fool to keep up this pretence. He is scratching about and he does sound like a 78 record. What annoys me more than anything about this man and this government is the insistence that it is not my problem guv' it's somebody else's fault. And in areas where they couldn't wriggle out of responsibility they invented quango's to deflect the flack. NICE, FSA and also Bank of England independence being good examples.
Unlike Verity I believe Cameron is a decent bloke trying to tread through a mine field to get elected and I think he's doing a good job of looking like a potential leader. However I do think his approach to PMQs could be better. Because he allows his frustrations to show through it can tend to put people off. He should tweak his approach and then he will really nail the PM good and proper.
Milton Keynes
March 18th, 2009 8:34pm Report this commentSo now Brown is the Good Samaritan! Two differences:
1. It cost the Samaritan two pence.
2. He used his own money.
Dorothy Wilson
March 18th, 2009 8:41pm Report this commentTo: cityboozer
Also, over the past two decades most commercial organisations have had to undertake cost cutting exercises on an almost continual basis. I live near Nottingham where 3 blue-chip companies have followed this pattern.
They do not do so to cut the services to their customers but to become more efficient and competitive. Basically, they understand that they can only survive if they supply their goods/services at prices their customers can afford to pay. This message seems to totally by-pass the public sector. There the ethos seems to be: let's do just what we want and hang the expense. The poor old taxpayer is a soft touch and will cough up whatever money we demand.
It really is time the public sector learned that we have to cut our coats according to the cloth.
Thomas Cussans
March 18th, 2009 10:55pm Report this commentCameron was excellent today, leaving Brown blustering, flat-footed and increasingly and buffoonishly ranting.
Yet one further way of getting properly under the McNutter's skin that Cameron might consider is to 'offer', Brown style, to give the Great McManiac 'lessons' in economics. I suspect it might set off the kind of higher-brain function meltdown that would further expose Brown for the obvious imposter that he is.
It was noticeable a few weeks ago at PMQs that McLoonyTunes, sighing at his pupil's slowness, found himself obliged to offer Cameron a patronizingly incoherent correction or two in Cameron's understanding of economics.
It was a properly creepy example of Brown's relentless attempts to deflect criticism of himself onto the Conservatives. Translated, it ran: They understand nothing; only mighty brains like mine are capable of contending with this unprecedented global financial crisis (which started in America); those of you still in short trousers (ie, all Tories) had better go back to school at once, where you might at least learn to count; meanwhile, allow me, please, to continue saving the world, which is my self-evident destiny because I am a great man who has been photographed standing next to Obama whereas you are all members of the Bulllingdon.
Cameron should turn this back on McCrazed.
"I am sorry the Prime Minister is so ignorant of basic economic facts' . . . 'I wish it wasn't necessary to give the Prime Minister a lesson in O-Level economics' . . . 'Yet again the Prime Minister seems not to understand even the simplest of economic realities' . . . 'The Prime Minister obviously needs a lesson in economic history . . . I am sorry to have to correct the Prime Minister again in such fundamental economic truths'.
It will drive McLooneyTunes round the bend. He will absolutely hate it, perhaps even to the point where he properly loses it in public, clearly his and his team's no. 1 horror story.
I seriously think this might prove one of Cameron's most productive lines of attack. I'd love to see him try it.
MikeB
March 18th, 2009 11:22pm Report this commentDorothy Wilson
Yes, a 1978 record!!
Hysteria
March 19th, 2009 1:24am Report this commentThomas C - brilliant - let's hope the team in Central Office pick that one up!!!
Jamal Akbhar
March 19th, 2009 9:44am Report this commentThere seem to be interesting similarities between Fritzl and McBrooon: both narcissists and both devoid of basic morality.
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