Nailing Brown's lies on spending

Publius

Mr Forsyth. I'm glad you used the word "lies" instead of Parris's "fibs" or the prissy "Brownies".

Fibs and Brownies are the kind of lies that don't matter. Brown's lies matter.

lawrence greek

Yeah, he should also be pushing the flipside to the Cuts argument - which taxes does Brown want to raise? How much worse off will every ordinary working person be under Brown? Are people happy to see their income fall to pay for more public sector fat-cattery?

Moraymint

Yes, it is absolutely essential that Cameron hammers Brown, and hammers him again, and again, and again. Like I've said before, Brown is an Orc: virtually indestructible and immoral to boot.

The state's welfare benefits costs alone now exceed the amount raised from income taxes. The overall state of the nation's finances is disastrous and there is absolutely no doubt that, with Brown at the helm, we're careering towards catastrophe.

I'm still largely unimpressed by Cameron and the Tories who, even now, appear to be failing to grasp the sheer enormity of the looming economic and social war zone that will be the legacy of 12 years of Labour misrule, deceit and blind incompetence.

Cameron and every other Tory worth his salt must maintain extreme pressure on Brown and his cohort of political gangsters and shysters until the electorate can eventually push the lot of them into oblivion.

Keep at it Cameron.

Oor Wullie

Cameron should DEMAND that he be allowed on all TV and Radio channels to denounce Brown as a liar. Which channel could/would refuse to let him speak (apart from the BBC)?
Go for him Dave!

Annabel Herriott

DC will have to press on. Brown is such a shape shifter he will always duck and weave.
Perhaps Speaker Bercow can make him answer the question instead of asking another one of his own.

TrevorsDen

That you can so freely and correctly use words like 'Browns lies' shows how debased New Labour have become.

But they have always been prepared to tell the big lie because
a) the media are so thick and gullible and
b) they know the media will move on to the next story.

Browns response to uncomfortable truths is to simply deny them. He is of course incapable of admitting any mistakes - where in fact every single thing he has ever done has been a mistake.

The notion that we should give away $100 billion of our own money to alleviate non existent global warming is just the latest.

TGF UKIP

Long, long past the time when the Tories should have started using the "L" word - as Labour did to them, with far less justification, prior to 97.

Simon Stephenson

"It would also miss something about the way the country is feeling: something Mr Brown himself has utterly missed. Britain is ready to think about cuts, even if Mr Brown isn’t ready to talk about them."

There's something Parris fails to mention, presumably so as to flatter some of his readership into thinking that the public's willingness to countenance cuts is a display of great collective wisdom. This is that the move in public mood has not been caused by some wonderful sixth sense warning people of the need to change tack, but by a more basic stimulus that sees personal advantage to be gained from favourite-backing and reflected glory.

The principal reason why "Britain is ready to think about cuts" is because the popular media has been pumping out stories that they're almost inevitable, and so "Cuts" is the horse to be on. Three or four years ago, when capping spending was if anything more important to the economy than it is now, there was no public-spirited campaign for it to happen, because the most likely horse to win in those days was called "More Investment".

If we are to resume making progress in this country, there are no two things more important than to stop the creeping redefinition of "right" to mean "popular", and to kill the idea that all opinion, no matter how it is derived, is of equal value.

Julianlzb87

I've heard that the Tories would
be short of experience to fill all
the Gov positions. Matthew should be given a peerage and a good job. They
could do far far worse.

Hawkeye

Best get a move on and ensure that Gordon damages Labour some more in the short term before he does a McCavity and leaves the election mess to some poor sod like Alan Johnson.

There are too many rumours circulating about Gordon's exit strategy for there not to be some fact behind it. It would also tie in very nicely with his past "election bottling" behaviour.

I always thought that Gordon would wait until the very, very, last day - 3rd June 2010 or some such - before being kicked out of No. 10. I have changed my view and I now think that he will want the ability to delude himself that he was a fabulous success and someone else, some incompetent, lost the election.

I regard Gordon as the best example of a Walter Mitty character in modern politics.

jonathan

James: Surprised Coffee Hse. hasn't blogged om Hilary Benn's admission (see R4 Any questions) that spending cuts will be 'unavoidable' after the next election.

Labourhome are none too pleased with him... :)

http://www.labourhome.org/forum/?p=6100

Jonathan

Surprised more hasn't been made of Hilary Benn's comments on Any questions.

He claimed that spending cuts would be unavoidable after the next election.

http://www.labourhome.org/forum/?p=6100

Merlin

Spot on Parris - may I suggest all political broadcasting from Tories plays You can't hide those lying eyes from now on?

JohnAnt

It's very simple. Show that 'Labour investment' is just a con, and explain the risks of IMF intervention if sovereign debt is downgraded.
But the problem shows that state-induced mass idiocy and innumeracy, though often electorally helpful, may not be a great idea after all.
How about a few grammar schools?

Denis Cooper

Cameron shouldn't have to "bore for Britain" about this.

The Tories have chosen to endlessly nit-pick over statistical details in the hope of exposing Brown as a liar, which they've now done; but it is boring.

At least, I find it boring, and I'd hazard a guess that the man on the Clapham omnibus is paying very little attention to it.

Apart from anything else, he's already realised that Brown is a liar, from numerous and in many cases more obvious examples over the years.

On the other hand, maybe he hasn't yet fully appreciated just how much money the government is having to borrow simply to maintain public spending at current levels, let alone to spend more as Brown keeps promising.

As Mervyn King said - maybe fed up waiting for Cameron to say it - "The scale of the deficit is truly extraordinary".

One pound borrowed, out of every four pounds spent - astonishing and frightening, rather than boring.

The Bellman

Clearly the Tories need to maintain the pressure over McSnotty's lies, but this isn't the real fight now. McSnotty is finished: he's a broken man, politically and morally. Pressing the attack against him is like Prince Rupert sacking the baggage train at Edgehill instead of engaging with the infantry and completing the rout. The real centre of gravity in this 'government' is systemic, and McSnotty's psotion as leader is a symptom, not the the disease. Until the whole nasty and incompetent anti-democratic project is dismantled, this is not over.

Someone needs to find the guts and the means to challenge Mandelson. Without him, the only person whose threats appear to be credible to the majority of the PLP, the government would have fallen by now. I suspect many voters who acknowledge his tv appearances see him as a plausible, if slightly oleaginous and occasionally sinister but avuncular type. (Albeit not an uncle you'd ask to baby-sit except in emergencies.) But this unelected Wormtongue, with his government-within-a-government retinue, and his malign influence on our constitution, should be dragged fully into the spotlight, and exposed to genuine scrutiny, particularly the extent of his influence over the mess of muddled initiatives and half-cooked aspirations that passes for policy. Until then, helping Brown to punch himself in the face with his own statistics will remain a sideshow.

A very satisfying sideshow, after enduring twelve years of this thuggish malcontent's vain boasts, but a sideshow nonetheless.

Edward Palmer

I prefer the Tory cuts to the lying Labour cu*ts

mitch

He has to keep bashing brown with the truth or browns sweet sounding bullshit will win.

David Ossitt

David Cameron should take a lesson from Gordon.

Gordon has the very nasty habit of spouting the same lie at every opportunity; over and over again, his labour cronies continue the deceit, nomatter the subject they are then speaking of.

I am not suggesting that Cameron should lie; not at all, I am suggesting that Cameron and the rest of the shadow cabinet should at every opportunity mention some uncomfortable (for Gordon) truths.

Along the lines of "How can we trust an un-elected prime minister and his un-elected deputy who promised a referenda to the British people, and broke that promise"

Lance Grundy

"Labour investment"

And what an "investment" it's been. After 12 years of Labour 'investing' Britain's ended up broke.

Would you give the Labour Party any of your money to "invest"? You'd give them a couple of grand and they'd be back in ten years to tell you they've got you millions in debt.

Looking at the state of the public finances, I don't know how Labour politicians can use the word "investment" and keep a straight face.

David Ossitt

jonathan at 1:56pm are you related to Jonathan 1:58pm?

Simon Stephenson

Annabel Herriott : 11.49am

Perhaps Speaker Bercow can make him answer the question instead of asking another one of his own.

Not until Labour are ready to make a fool out of Brown to give a boost to his successor, I should have thought, Annabel.

Labour elected Bercow for a reason, and it wasn't so that he could tighten-up holding this Government to account. The opposite, if anything.

dorothy wilson

Yes, it is essential that DC keeps hammering home the mess that Brown has landed us in. However, he needs to do so in terms that resonate with the man in the street. Terms like public sector borrowing requirement do not. Putting over the fact that Brown is spending £4 for every £3 in the kitty is more likely to hit home. Also using analogies such as likening the PSBR to a massive credit debt on which the balance, and the interest on it, is always increasing rather than being paid off would perhaps help.

mitch

Call him the ocean finance PM might work.
seems the spending review has been binned now so brown can lie some more.

Ian Walker

While Brown persists in lying, then it's absolutely right to keep banging on about it. The more people think he's a liar, the less they'll believe anything else he says.

Denis Cooper

The money-go-round continues to go round, and this coming week the total money printed for the government to spend will top £100 billion.

Now when the government spends four pounds, it has to borrow one of them - "lend us a quid, mate" - ; it's borrowing close to a billion pounds every working day just to keep going - "lend us a billion, mate"- ; and it's blindingly obvious that this can't continue indefinitely.

And it can only borrow on this stupendous scale because the Bank of England is creating new money and using it to buy previously issued gilts from private investors, at the same time as the Treasury is selling new gilts to (in many cases, the same) private investors.

Last week, the Bank created £6.5 billion and used it to mop up excess gilts from the market, while the Treasury borrowed £4.5 billion by selling new gilts into the market.

This coming week, the total quantity of new money created by the Bank will top the £100 billion mark - at the moment it's £99.094 billion:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/apf/index.htm

of which 97% has been used to buy up previously issued gilts, for no good reason except to make sure that the government can continue to borrow and spend.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/apf/announcement090625.pdf

On Monday the Bank will spend another £3.5 billion of newly created money to buy gilts, taking the total including the purchase of commercial assets to £102.6 billion, and on Wednesday there'll be a further £3.0 billion spent buying gilts, taking the total for purchases of gilts to £102.9 billion.

Fred Quimby

Here we go again

Dave "BOY" Caneron couldn't score in a Parliamentary bordello.

For Dave it is all an Oxford Debating Society Meeting with voting points awarded for light points making, tig and other intellectual ballet steps.

He has, sitting opposite him, the worst and most mendacious Prime Minister in the worst administration in living written history and Dave can't do the business.

The Tories need someone to tear him to shreds and expose him as the madman he is. Someone to get into his ribs, verbally speaking, and rattle him severely.

Nokias would be the least of it, all in the glare of live TV.

Nope sorry, Cameron is a dud too.

Richard Holloway

Cameron could take the simple step of calling Brown a liar at PMQs. He would be told to withdraw his comment and in refusing would be garenteed coverage on the news. The media (even the BBC) would then be forced to do the background on the story and expose Brown for the liar that he is.