A percentage game at PMQs
Lloyd Evans 3:24pm
Open up your political lexicons. Inscribe this one in permanent ink. We’ll be laughing about it for years to come. Answering a question at PMQs on budget reductions, Gordon Brown promised that in 2013/14 there would be ‘a zero percent rise’ in spending. This bizarre piece of tweak-onomics was flung straight back at him by David Cameron. ‘That answer will get zero percent,’ said Dave. He then produced a Treasury report confirming that spending will shrink in the medium term.
Brown wriggled and shifted and changed the subject clumsily. ‘The debate is about this – how to return to jobs and growth in the economy.’ He rattled off a list of pet schemes – mostly for kiddies and the unemployed – which he claimed the Tories proposed to cut. Cameron disagreed. The debate was about trust. Would the prime minister be straight with the British people and admit the truth about cuts? Fat chance he would. Instead he called the Tories ‘the only serious party in the world’ calling for budget reductions.
‘Complete nonsense,’ said Cameron. ‘Not even his own cabinet now take this line.’ As for the ‘ludicrous Mr Ten Percent’ label, Cameron said, ‘it’s not doing any damage to us.’ He sounded a touch over-confident here. If it’s doing no damage then logically he must want Labour to squander more energy repeating it. Instead he’s spot-lit a frailty and invited further attacks. Then, with a great puff of smoke and a volley of statistics he tried whacking the PM with a bigger version of the same weapon. He called Gordon Brown, ‘Mr Thirteen and a half percent.’ Brown smiled with relief as that silly title whizzed harmlessly over his head.
Cameron won today but after three weeks on the same issue it’s time for a fresh offensive. He looks as tired and impatient attacking the PM on spending as the rest of us feel listening to it. Paradoxically, the spending row is at its liveliest in the press - and on sites like this - where one can peruse the coloured charts at one’s leisure and chortle with disbelief at the government’s shameless misreadings of them. Not so in a live debate. Digit-wrangling is a feeble rhetorical weapon because arithmetic makes no appeal to the emotions.
Nick Clegg bumbled in and had a go at both parties at once. ‘The bogus debate on public spending has hit new lows,’ he said. Wrong. The Tory assault on Gordon’s lies is not bogus but principled. And with hundreds of bloggers hounding Brown it’s also breaking new political territory. But Clegg was merely teeing himself up for his big drive up the green. ‘Both are trading insults so they can both avoid telling the truth,’ he said. Neatly phrased but what was the game-plan? Taking on the entire house is a doomed tactic. With his second question he got to the point. Trident. He taxed the PM for signing the deal covertly during the summer recess. Good issue. Excellent point. If he’d mentioned it earlier he might have made some ground.
Tory backbenchers attempted to inflict more pain on the PM over budget cuts but he scuttled behind his stockade and caterwauled at them like an 80s class-warrior. ‘The Conservatives have no plan for jobs,’ he yelled and he claimed there’d be ‘thousands more unemployed’ if the opposition gained power. Clearly this will be Labour’s battle-cry as the jobless total rises: ‘It’s bad now but it’ll be worse under them.’ Logically this is nonsense. But it’s shrewd politics to cultivate fear during a slump.
And what of John Bercow today? I barely noticed him. For a Speaker that’s a good result.
Previous
Ian Walker
July 1st, 2009 3:32pm Report this comment"...it’s shrewd politics to cultivate fear during a slump."
Adolf thought so too.
George Laird
July 1st, 2009 3:38pm Report this commentDear Lloyd
Read the piece;
"The Tory assault on Gordon’s lies is not bogus but principled".
Please please please, do you think this is a political rally?
Granted this place is a Tory lovefest and nodding dug house but remember others come here.
Tories principled?
Try spinning that line in a Glasgow Housing Estate to the neds and see if your new 'hobby' has a future.
Running for your life!
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
Grumpy Old Man
July 1st, 2009 3:50pm Report this commentShame you didn't stay on for the Points of Order. Mr Speaker got tested and testy there.
jonathan
July 1st, 2009 3:50pm Report this comment“…after three weeks on the same issue it’s time for a fresh offensive.”
I’m sorry Lloyd but for Cameron to change topic now, would be snatch defeat from the jaws of victory…. And Cameron must be seen to win this argument, otherwise Labour will return to the cuts theme, at a later date.
Next weeks’ PMQ’s should start with Brown’s admission that overall public spending will rise by 0% in 2014 [Cameron should ignore the falls in 2012 & 2013]. Cameron should then ask about debt repayments and force Brown to concede that they will rise. Once this is accomplished he should return to the stagnant real terms public spending increases and ask how if debt repayments are going up, can the GVN spend more on front line services and debt repayments if the overall budget is rising by 0%.
This is a simple point that the public will understand… the game will then be over and Brown will be seen to have lost. We haven’t reached that point yet.
DavefromLuton
July 1st, 2009 4:30pm Report this commentOf course Cameron should change his line of attack now.
It's about time he pinned the blame on Brown for the mes we are in.
Brown always used the US sub-prime defence but he needs to be reminded - forcefully - that he was in charge here and that it was his changes to the watchdog rules that were a major part of the problem
Chuck Unsworth
July 1st, 2009 4:43pm Report this commentI'd agree. Figures are best discussed on paper - or the net. But have we reached a kind of stalemate here, what with Brown doing his usual thing and Cameron doing his (now) usual thing - and Clegg doing his usual thing of misjudging the moment and timing?
I think that the Conservatives should have the numbers game debate elsewhere. Cameron has to major on integrity, honesty and credibility. Who do you believe? The mendacious bastards in power, or the slightly less mendacious bastards on the other benches? Who would you prefer to have in power? Proven liars or potential liars? There are plenty of examples of lying elsewhere in this Government - Mandelson and Balls being the prime examples. Never mind all this crap about 'policy'. The fact is that no Opposition party can - or should - offer alternative policies on anything when the Government won't open all the books for real scrutiny.
Alastair
July 1st, 2009 5:12pm Report this commentBrown says to the BBC ''I always tell the truth''.. Clearly another lie!
Hysteria
July 1st, 2009 6:09pm Report this commentwhat jonathan said
Chris Rose
July 1st, 2009 8:01pm Report this commentIn Points of Order after PMQ, Bercow was asked why the announcement of East Coast rail nationalisation had not been first announced to the House. For a Speaker who has pledged himself to stop ministers making government announcements to the press, his reply was evasive.
This is now the third time such announcements have been made this week and Bercow seems to making no effort to stop them. It looks as if he's being sat on by the Government.
Oscar
July 1st, 2009 8:35pm Report this commentAgree with Jonathan. Some PMQ buffs may be bored with the approach, (altho' I'm not one of them), but for this to reach general public perception it has to be hammered and hammered and hammered home. It is the battleground of the next election. Of course Cameron needs to persist.
DM
July 1st, 2009 10:07pm Report this commentThere is plenty more Labour deception for Cameron to go on when it comes to the economy. He should push Brown on the level of debt he has landed us in. PFIs, the lot, it has to be spelled out. Too many people think we are just in a recession caused by the banks. They need to know what Brown has done to Britain, and how it is going to play out for generations.
Time to resurrect the theme of the Tory baby poster - mother's eyes, father's nose, Brown's debt, or whatever it was.
Back to top