PMQs live blog
Peter Hoskin 11:50amStay tuned for live coverage of PMQs from 1200.
1202: And they're off. Brown starts with by welcoming the "new recogition" that British troops killed in combat will receive. The Queen will make a statement on this later.
1204: First question on swine flu. Brown confirms that there are now over 6,000 confirmed cases. He adds that "we continue to monitor the situation closely". Andy Burnham will make a statement on the issue tomorrow.
1205: Cameron leads by asking Brown whether "total spending" will continue to rise. Brown says that it will before - oddly - claiming that spending will "rise by 0 percent" as of 2013. The Tory benches erupt with laughter.
1207: Cameron pushes on spending, brandishing a Treasury document which points to medium-term cuts. Brown responds by saying that the "real issue" is the Government "spending now on the services we need". He then says that Cameron needs to answer questions about Tory cuts. Same old, same old.
1210: This is solid stuff from Cameron. He defines the framework of the debate: "In his answer to the first question, the PM mentioned a 0 percent rise ... in the second question, he admitted that capital spending will be cut." Brown looks flustered, and again goes on about "spending now".
1212: Now Cameron sets out how the 10 percent cuts figure comes from the "Government's own figures," adding that - going off some of the claims Ed Balls has made about health and education policy - you may as well call Brown "Mr 13.5 percent".
1213: Shameless stuff from Brown. He seizes on Cameron saying that "unemployment will rise" (erm, it will) and says that this is "Tory policy".
1214: Cameron: "I have to say, Mr Speaker, that this is one of the most feeble performances I've ever seen from this Prime Minister." And then a great quip: "The only person we want to add to the unemployment rolls is the Prime Minister..."
1215: Brown says that there won't be a spending review. His constant refrain is that Government is "spending now," and that the Tories would cut jobs, Sure Start centres etc. He ends by referring to "Tory tax cuts for the few".
1217: Clegg rounds on Cameron and Brown, saying that the former won't "increase public spending now" and that the latter won't "identify the savings that need to be made in the future."
1219: Brown says that the Government has taken "difficult decisions" to get the deficit down. And they are? "Efficiency savings, an increase in the top rate of tax..." Meanwhile, the Coffee House debt counter keeps going up, up up.
1220: Backbench questions now. Brown says that the Government are in talks with Corus over jobs.
1221: In response to a question on capital spending from David Gauke, Brown says that the Government are "bringing forward investment". This PMQs is really showing how muddy Brown's "Labour investment vs Tory cuts" message is getting.
1223: "New investment in training" etc. etc. etc.
1224: Mark Simmonds asks what cuts in health expenditure the Government is planning post-2011. Brown says that they're planning to "increase investment" in the health service.
1225: Denis MacShane sets up Brown to attack the Tories on their new group in the European Parliament.
1227: More from Brown on "bringing investment forward". It's almost like he's admitting to "scorched earth" policy...
1228: Brown expresses his "disappointment" about the actions of the Iranian government.
1230: The Tory backbenches are really pushing the spending issue. Adam Holloway asks Brown to confirm what departments would see spending cuts after 2012. Brown: "I don't know why they're talking about 2011, when they've cut spending in 2009, 2010..."
1232: And that's it.
VERDICT: A solid performance from, and victory for, David Cameron. The Tory leader is getting stronger on the spending issue, while Brown is grasping around for new ways to develop his investment-vs-cuts dividing line. The PM pushed his new diversion today - concentrating on "spending now" - but it just highlighted how muddy his central message has become, and sounded like the retreat it was. Another of the thousand cuts to his premiership.
Previous
T .England
July 1st, 2009 12:28pm Report this commentDo you know what's getting to me?
Brown the liar keeps on saying the Tories will do nothing!
Now, putting aside the fact that is a lie, what does he take the general public for?!
I mean! Even the most braindead non polictical person knows only too well the Tories wont do nothing when they eventually come to power, in fact we ALL know the Tories will have to work damb hard to put Labours mess straight.
Browns has always been out of touch with the public but thinking he can blantantly constantly lie to them & them believe it is beyound a joke, it's insulting.
Prodicus
July 1st, 2009 12:41pm Report this commentWhat's behind Brown's weird use of the present tense in reference to 'Tory cuts': 'They've cut spending in 2009...' (sic) etc.... the use of 'now'?
Is his nightmare already become his 'reality'? Does he believe the Tories are in the government and he's back in Opposition as he was for so many years and where his attitudes were set in stone?
Is it some strange Brownian political gaming ploy, and if so, to what desired effect? To deflect attention from next year when he will be up to his neck in dead parrots - sorry, I mean chickens - come home?
John Page
July 1st, 2009 12:50pm Report this commentHe also seemed to me to give the same answer to about half of all the questions he was asked.
His answer on the disabled education facility towards the end showed his limitation. It was all about general budgets. He just doesn't get it.
Alex
July 1st, 2009 12:51pm Report this commentCameron did pretty well today. Then again, with Brown he hasn't really got much of an adversary has he?
Brown still acting like he's in opposition. On this note, Labour have always acted like they are in opposition. They have always been more concerned with what the Conservatives are up to, rather than leading from the front.
Wilfred
July 1st, 2009 12:58pm Report this commentWhat a biased blog. In fact, Brown's 1221 response to Gauke clearly outlined the point that Cameron (the previous week) was quoting from the original Treasury plans, whereas Brown was talking about more recent plans to bring capital spending forward to deal with the recession.
So in fact it's Cameron's shameless "lie" jibe that is getting trashed by the day.
This focus on bogus "lie" allegations by Cameron is demeaning our politics.
It also makes it obvious that the Tories have no rational plans for dealing with the recession.
Ctesibius
July 1st, 2009 1:43pm Report this commentThis from the man who abolished boom and bust
Cynical Voter
July 1st, 2009 1:48pm Report this commentBrown starts with by welcoming the "new recogition" that British troops killed in combat will receive.
So he will personally attend each reunion service as the coffins are unloaded....but only if Piers Morgan asks him to !
The Bellman
July 1st, 2009 1:48pm Report this commentWell, the thousand cuts will get there in the end, but I can't help think that we'd all be much better off if there was a decapitation. Even a knee-capping would be good.
Not literally, of course. That would be terrible.
T .England
July 1st, 2009 1:50pm Report this commentDo you know what's getting to me?
Brown the liar keeps on saying the Tories will do nothing!
Now, putting aside the fact that's a lie, what does he take the general public for?!
I mean! Even the most braindead non polictical person knows only too well the Tories wont do nothing when they eventually come to power, in fact we all know the Tories will have to work damb hard to put Labours mess straight.
Brown has always been out of touch with the public but thinking he can constantly blantantly lie to them & the public believe it is beyond a joke, it's insulting.
Denis Cooper
July 1st, 2009 1:52pm Report this commentAt any point, did Cameron or anyone else ask the obvious, central, question:
"As the Prime Minister insists that he'll be spending more, could he tell the House where he'll get the money to spend more, when he's already having to borrow a quarter of what he's spending now, a billion pounds every working day; and hasn't the traditional Labour philosophy of 'tax and spend' now been superseded by 'borrow and spend'?"
Adam Smith
July 1st, 2009 1:53pm Report this commentAre you sure your name is Wilfred and not Ed Balls?
chris
July 1st, 2009 1:56pm Report this commentWelcome, Wilfred. Hope to see more of your useful comments in the future.
By the way, what are Liebour's 'rational' plans for dealing with the recession, apart from bankrupting the country?
Chuck Unsworth
July 1st, 2009 2:11pm Report this comment@ Wilfred.
And you believe Brown's 'plans' are 'rational'???
Slim Jim
July 1st, 2009 2:13pm Report this commentBringing capital spending forward? Is that the same as raiding the piggy-bank now, and somehow hoping it will be replaced at some point in the future? How is this going to be paid for? It's obvious that Labour have no rational plans to deal with national debt. As for Cameron demeaning politics - just what have the unelected Stalinist thug and his fellow criminals been doing since 1997?
Cottage Pie
July 1st, 2009 2:15pm Report this commentWhat's the difference between a zero percent rise and a zero percent fall?
IM
July 1st, 2009 2:23pm Report this commentWilfred - go and lie down.
A. Psychiatrist (neither in nor at Berkeley) writes...
July 1st, 2009 3:06pm Report this commentProdicus: I think you are on to something. He's clearly going through a bit of a crack-up - he looked to me like he was going to cry at one point. He obviously relies on mental 'hand-rails' to get him through PMQs, and I think that is at least part of the reason he doesn't answer questions: he has to find ways to hook onto comfortable phrases, so he doesn't have to think on his feet - where he might make a boob.
So it does indeed sound like he's retreating to his mental happy place - and that means his time in opposition, when lots of people were telling him what a clever boy he was, and asking him to come to their parties, giving him the recognition he craved but never got at home.
That would also explain his fixation on other childhood items, such as rocking horses and nappies.
Verity
July 1st, 2009 3:47pm Report this commentAdam Smith, that is unjust! Wilfred's name could easily be McBride. Or Izzett.
Mark M
July 1st, 2009 3:56pm Report this commentDenis Cooper
I've also wondered why no-one has ever asked the question "Has the PM ever, in his political life, proposed a solution to a problem that didn't involve spending yet more money?" or perhaps "Why does the PM insist on measuring success in terms of how much of other people's money he's able to spend?".
The Tories need to set up support for the idea that spending more is not necessarily good and spending less is not necessarily bad.
JONNY
July 1st, 2009 4:18pm Report this commentAt least Speaker Martin would have put a stop on Denis MacShane asking about the Tory new alignment in the Euro Parl.
No business of his. None of Brown's either.
Why on earth didn't Bercow call it out of order?
Little Angussie
July 1st, 2009 5:26pm Report this commentThis is getting past the stage of reality now. The prime minister is now officially, as Guido has been saying for ages, the Prime Mentalist!
He is living in a parallel Bunker somewhere in the depths of Downing Street with Bollocks and Mandleson while his wife clears out to Glastonbury (with Naomi Campbell for goodness sake), to get away from the madness - not much change there then!
After his stunning reply to David Cameron today about the 0% increase in public spending I swear I did a few "slack-jaw" movements not unlike Big Empty Suit hinself. It really was one for the historians and will surely haunt him from now until he is put down.
However he did bring sharply into focus the real battleground issue in the forthcoming election.
I can envisage Bruin, Mandleson & Bollocks ramming the point home at every opportunity - Huge 0% Labour spending increases versus savage 0% Tory cuts!
BROWNS CUTS! BROWNS LIES! BROWNS DECEIT! BROWN'S THEFT OF OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES! BROWNS CONTEMPT FOR PARLIAMENT! BROWNS CRAVEN RUNNING FROM THE ELECTORATE - is the real reason we are where we are! It is time the whole country realised it because it is the private sector of industry that is being squeezed tighter every day this corrupt cabal are in power, that will have to pull us out of the economic carnage Brown has created! The man sickens me (if you had not already noticed).
Percy
July 1st, 2009 5:46pm Report this commentJonny, Denis MacShane should be left to witter on as every time he speaks it is irreverent and a bit stupid, witness his witless intervention to William Hague in the Dissolution of Parliament Debate on the 10th of June, utter drival.
Minnie Ovens
July 1st, 2009 5:48pm Report this commentCottage Pie, I was going to respond to your deep (and, may I say, penetrating) question with a few charts and further statistics but since I do not have a clue about economics I will be to the point.
A zero percent decline (or CUT!) is obviously a horrible and nasty plot by Cameron's lot.
A zero percent increase (or RISE!)is the "no boom and bust" saviour of the world getting on with the job.
So there.
TrevorsDen
July 1st, 2009 6:28pm Report this commentJonny - you are correct. Bercow should have. he is turning out to be a dud.
Wilfred - Brown has been claiming spending is going to go up - but its not. its going down from 44 billion to 22.billion. FACT.
Brown was a disgrace today
Wilfred
July 1st, 2009 7:56pm Report this commentMark M asks "Has the PM ever, in his political life, proposed a solution to a problem that didn't involve spending yet more money?"
Well, yes, Mark, when he paid off the rest of the national debt that the Tories had left hanging over our heads since WWII. It did involve paying money, certainly, but paying off debt is not what you had in mind, I suppose.
You can't jsut airbrush Brown's earlier successes out of history. It's dishonest - in the words of your great leader, it's a "lie".
Alex
July 1st, 2009 9:53pm Report this commentWilfred, or is it Balls?
Andy
July 1st, 2009 9:53pm Report this comment"Bercow ... is turning out to be a dud." Somehow that does not surprise. He was, after all, elected by Labour votes.
Chuck Unsworth
July 1st, 2009 9:59pm Report this comment@ Wilfred
So tell us how this debt was 'paid off'. Was it some sort of one-off payment or something? I seem to recall that this debt was being paid off in instalments for a period of about 50 years. Or did Brown somehow manage to get his hands on a large cash sum and pay it all in one transaction?
Would that be from selling off all the gold? Hope he got a good price for it, then. That was a 'success' apparently.
Paul
July 2nd, 2009 7:23am Report this comment@Wilfred. Selective with the facts aren't we?Since WW2 we have had several Labour governments who could have repaid this debt. One needed help from the IMF I recall. You cannot just airbrush out facts either.
The Bellman
July 2nd, 2009 9:01am Report this comment@Wilfred: McSnotty's "earlier successes"? I assume you are refering to the period of unparalleled economic growth over some of which he presided.
So presumably you'd want the historical record to focus on the thousands of miles of luxurious comfort and top-class catering enjoyed by those sniping ingrates who died on the Titanic.
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