The back-pedalling begins in earnest
Fraser Nelson 6:04pm
How do you explain what a “zero per cent rise” is? Michael Ellam, Brown’s outgoing press secretary, had this task earlier today and I went along to the lobby to hear him. His answer hints at what I suspect will be an almighty U-turn from the government on cuts. Brown was “interrupted” he said – he meant to say 0.7% but was cut off after zero. As if. When it was pointed out to him that Brown said “zero percent rise in 2013/14,” and wasn’t interrupted at all, Ellam basically admitted that Brown misspoke and apparently corrected himself in his next sentence by saying he was referring to 0.7% growth in current (as opposed to capital) spending. But what Ellam said next really caught my attention.
Spending totals, Ellam said, have only been set out until 2010/11. Untrue, I told him, Brown stood up in the Commons two weeks ago and read out spending totals until 2013/14. Those numbers have since come to haunt Brown because they spell a real-terms cut. He can’t un-say those figures and, anyway, you can work them out from Budget 2009. So how does he get out of it? Anyone with a calculator knows that these figures go down after inflation, and by 7% once you factor in debt interest and dole etc. Here’s a reminder, from a table I never tire of publishing:
So how do you rub that out? Comrade Ellam has a plan. The figures to 2010/11 are firm, and described as an ‘envelope’. But after that, the figures are apparently not firm. They are not in the ‘envelope’ but instead they are ‘projections’ and are liable to be revised in the Pre-Budget Report. This is new - and, I suspect, this is Mandelson. The Prince knows that Cameron's attack - "Tory truth v Labour lies" - is working, that people can work out that Brown is lying. The Prince knows Brown has to stop claiming spending will rise after the election, because now every interviewer in the land is ready to say "that's a big fat lie". So Brown must now back away from those figures (above) that show spending falling.
As a result, I believe the government is in the process of rubbishing its own estimates, now that they have become a political liability. The Spending Review was cancelled on the premise that you can't peer so far into the future. That didn't stop Brown in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004. If we are not to take the Budget seriously, will someone please inform the debt markets? I asked Ellam this afternoon if we are supposed to take seriously the spending totals which Brown read out for those years in the Commons. He didn't (directly) answer. He has been told to say that the first year of the above table is firm - an "envelope" and the rest are somehow not so firm. This undermines the credibility of everything the Budget forecasts, after the next financial year.
Keep your eyes on this, because we could have a new distinction. Soon we’ll be told that Brown misspoke in the Commons when he listed those spending totals, and in fact they’re not spending totals at all. In fact, those Labour cuts – he’ll say - were all imaginary. The problem for Brown is that he can’t change anything until the Pre-Budget Report. And, by then, everyone will have stopped listening.
P.S. I can understand CoffeeHouser's suspicion but word "envelope" does have a specific meaning in Treasury parlance, and Ellam is quite a straight-batting type, very much a creature of the Treasury (to whence he's returning). I suspect Ellam's weakness here is accuracy, rather than spin. The Budget before a Spending Review (SR) sets out what the total spending "envelope" will be and then the SR divvies it up, saying who gets what. Ellam means to say the 'projections' are not considered 'envelope' until they are used for the purposes of a SR - so until then, they're still written in pencil, not ink. It's a rather pedantic point, though. I'd argue that Brown set out his "envelope" to 2013/14 in PMQs when he told MPs what the spending total would be - spelling out what was in Budget 09 and teeing us up for a SR that has now been cancelled. Brown can't now back-peddle (sic) and then say those figures are not to be taken seriously once he finds out that they've landed you in trouble. I may be wrong, but I do think No10 is preparing to tear up those figures Brown read out, and replace them with ones which go slightly up rather than slightly down. As if that will make a difference!
Previous
Chuck Unsworth
July 1st, 2009 6:31pm Report this commentWhat 'envelope'? When did Brown start talking about 'envelopes'? Is this something to do with flogging the Post Office?
Andrew K
July 1st, 2009 6:31pm Report this commentFraser, it's "back-pedalling".
Any vacancies for pedantic unemployed accountants as sub-editors?
Chris
July 1st, 2009 6:34pm Report this commentBack-pedalling, I think you mean. It's Labour's honour and our future that are being peddled.
john miller
July 1st, 2009 6:35pm Report this commentAhh, the most significant bit of 1984. How little time needs to elapse before you can rewrite the past?
Brown seems in good shape here with a period of about five hours.
This comfortably beats an old record of 20 hours that was held by Harriet Harman, who denied on the Today programme that she had said something which was being shown on YouTube.
But this was shattered by Ed Balls, who having been caught on video sneering "So what?" beetled round to Hansard within 10 minutes and made them re-write history.
Presumably, to nick the record off the boy, Brown will have to change what he said almost as soon as he said it. I think, given a bit more prompting by Cameron that won't be a problem.
Aaron
July 1st, 2009 6:38pm Report this commentSurely it's back-pedalling, as in the cycling sense. Peddling has a more mendacious connotation, which may of course be what you intended...
Paul
July 1st, 2009 6:48pm Report this commentIt stopped being beyond parody a long time ago. It's beyond beyond parody.
And all the time this is going on, out on the harsher side of the fantastic bubble, real people have real lives to lead. Our collective and individual futures are in jeopordy because of this ridiculous jerk and his power-lust. We deserve better government than this. We need better government than this.
When o when will someone somewhere do something about it!
RW
July 1st, 2009 6:48pm Report this commentWhat's with this "misspoke"?
Misspoke=Told Lies, shurely?
Fraser. This is seminal, fascinating stuff to the statistically minded, or students of creative accounting, but it is not going to grip your average Joe Voter by the Ed Balls unless it can be retold in News of the World language. Only a genius could do this. Are you up for it?
JohnOfEnfield
July 1st, 2009 6:53pm Report this commentFraser, does this mean that Ed Balls owes YOU an apology?
Tom Freeman
July 1st, 2009 7:07pm Report this commentIt's plausible enough that Brown fluffed his words, but still... dear oh dear.
BTW I suspect that's a typo in your heading - it should be 'pedalling' - but it works well as wordplay: an attempt to pull back while still selling us a line.
NorthernJohn
July 1st, 2009 7:11pm Report this comment"Envelope"
What the f***?
Travis Bickle
July 1st, 2009 7:24pm Report this commentIf any of us misspoke in public, or inadvertently misinterpreted the rules in the course of our jobs we'd be out on our ears immediately. If he can't read out tractor production figures honestly and correctly he shouldn't mention them at all
G Brown
July 1st, 2009 7:40pm Report this commentFraser.How dare you mock the Prime Minister. It is awfully noisy in the House of Commons and I am sure that he is being totally honest when he says that he tried to say 0.7% but the noise prevented me.....sorry....him... from getting his figures out.That Cameron chap is such a bully.
Hysteria
July 1st, 2009 7:50pm Report this commentgreat stuff Fraser - it is truly pathetic to watch this.
But here in the US it is much the same story on the budget front with people slowly waking up from the "Yes We Can" trance.....
KJ
July 1st, 2009 8:25pm Report this commentThe only "envelope" I can see here is the envelope that the budget was written on the back of.
oldtimer
July 1st, 2009 8:26pm Report this commentWhen Mr Ellam says "envelope" does he mean as in "back of an envelope"? If so that does seem to describe, more than adequately, the quality of the financial forecasts produced by this mendacious government.
Because "projections" stretch even further into the future than "envelope" forecasts they are likely to be even more unreliable. The Treasury track record on deficit forecasting is so bad (it usually goes the wrong way) this is bad news indeed.
mitch
July 1st, 2009 8:33pm Report this commentGordon just gets more embarrassing every day he staggers from one screw up to another pausing only to lie through his teeth.
Watching this wreck of a man get humiliated every Wednesday could almost make you take pity on him until you realise its what he deserves.
Moraymint
July 1st, 2009 9:01pm Report this commentAh Hysteria ... news from Stateside where, yes, other pals of mine over there report the same slow awakening that is occurring.
This issue - of nations going bankrupt with political elites singularly unable to face let alone handle the notion - is becoming more scary by the day.
You and I know the answer. Ignore virtually anything spouted by a politician; track and rely on apolitical analyses and commentaries; keep building up that self-reliance capability.
Folk don't realise that socio-economic armageddon is not an unrealistic outcome, as many would have us believe!
Draughtsman
July 1st, 2009 9:10pm Report this commentKeep hammering at them Fraser - very well done. It is codswallop to suggest that Brown misspoke. He used the term 'zero percent rise' so that he could include the word 'rise' in his sentance instead of saying 'no growth in spending' and now he has been caught out his spokesmen are trying to gloss over it. If they think we are taken in by this drivel then they really must believe that we came down with the last shower of rain.
Bugger Lugs
July 1st, 2009 9:13pm Report this commentThe figures to 2010/11 are firm, and described as an ‘envelope’
The whole financial exercise smells like the "back of an envelope" job.
Brown just makes things up and wills them to happen; figures too.
bring it on
July 1st, 2009 9:23pm Report this commentit's only wednesday. can this week get any worse for this bunch of gangsters ?
Hysteria
July 1st, 2009 9:46pm Report this commentI think "back-peddling" was a much better turn of phrase achshully!!!!
John Moss
July 1st, 2009 9:49pm Report this commentDon't you "peddle" lies? and Pedal a bike?
Perhaps Fraser was right with his first version of the title?
Andy
July 1st, 2009 10:00pm Report this commentAre these Brown envelopes?
Steve.W
July 1st, 2009 10:41pm Report this commentI hope Brown looks over his shoulder before the U-turn, if he's pedalling that is.
Dave
July 2nd, 2009 2:41am Report this commentNone of this "envelope" stuff matters. It is too complicated and/or boring for people who don't pore over blogs to understand.
The vital question is, will the public believe that Brown is being honest or not? Cameron needs to forget about catching him out on figures and percentages, he has done this already but Brown just invents new figures. The Tories must get this idea that Gordo is a liar firmly into the heads of the electorate, and well before the election.
logdon
July 2nd, 2009 6:16am Report this comment"From The Times July 2, 200 Anatole Kaletsky.
Two of the most familiar aphorisms in progressive politics are Nye Bevan’s famous comment that “socialism is the language of priorities” and the age-old cliché that “to govern is to choose”. Now Gordon Brown has brought these hoary old slogans up to date for the age of post-Blairite new Labour. For Mr Brown today, socialism is the language of pretences and to govern is to cheat. "
According to the Times, Brown is now a 'cheater'?
Not quite how he seemingly views himself if his trainbound answer to Nick Robinson on BBC News last night is to be believed.
Watching his whole persona flick from inane gurning to the snarling grimace in a second, it's obvious that even questioning his honesty is a blue touch paper subject.
He quite visibly struggled with self control as he lashed out at
the hapless Robinson. Surely even the supine BBC must realise things are not quite right with this deluded man.
As he watches his beloved project crash and burn around his ears, nothing is beyond him.
Even the despised HoL is now a mere receptacle for placemen (and Glennys Kinnoch) to springboard into power without the inconvenience of elections.
And this is democracy?
Sasquatch
July 2nd, 2009 7:47am Report this commentDid none of you see the word "(sic)" after "peddling"? Do none of you know what it means?
EastEndInfidel
July 2nd, 2009 7:59am Report this commentBack-pedalling? This lying and hypocritical government's cuts have already started to take effect.
Brown and Balls can thank Michael Jackson’s demise for allowing Labour to bury bad news last weekend. What else can explain the lack of outrage over the recent multi-billion pound cock up ruining college building projects up and down the country? This is financial incompetence writ large on the part of Balls and his useless, overpaid lackeys in the LSC, Britain’s biggest quango. Further Education pupils will suffer and construction workers lose their jobs while the quango’s overpaid incompetents move up or carry on without censure. It’s worth pointing out that of the few college projects saved for go ahead (13 out of 160) ALL are located in Labour held seats. Is this what Brown means by ‘Labour investment vs Tory cuts’?
http://www.cnplus.co.uk/sectors/education/lsc-shortlist-construction-projects-in-tatters/5204248.article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8120809.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/26/colleges-building-collapse
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/4462738.__450m_funding_axed_leaving_Sussex_colleges_rebuilding_plans_in_tatters/
NickW
July 2nd, 2009 8:12am Report this commentBrown's policy is to crash the economy into a cliff at full speed so as to ensure that the Conservatives,(if they form the next Government) get all the opprobrium from having to clear up the mess.
The lives of the people on the train mean nothing; spiting the Tories is more important.
Sean Haffey
July 2nd, 2009 8:36am Report this commentOn Radio4 at lunch time yesterday I heard a Labour/government spokesman (I missed his name) defend the decision to defer the spending review. The analogy he used was "You can't do a weather forecast when there's a tornado."
What a lovely metaphor.
How entirely wrong.
Meteorologists are at their busiest when there's a tornado around. They can, with pretty great accuracy, tell you when the tornado will go next and when the skies will clear.
I wish the government could.
Mark C
July 2nd, 2009 9:08am Report this comment"To whence he is returning"??? Shame on you, Fraser: "whither he is returning" or "whence he came", please!
But otherwise on the button as ever on this issue. Balls was saying earlier this week that it was not possible to know what the government's finances would be like after 2011 and that he expected there to be enough money to increase spending. They are busy distancing themselves from what they said last week. They have no shame.
Quantitative Ealing
July 2nd, 2009 9:17am Report this commentI note that we can't have a CSR because we're in a recession and can't forecast growth, but Darling and the Treasury were perfectly happy to publish their ridiculous growth forecasts out to 2013/4 not three months ago in the budget.
David Bouvier
July 2nd, 2009 9:54am Report this commentIf Ellam is a straight kind of guy why did he lie to you and say that Brown was interrupted saying 0.7%?
A) He listened to the original statement and chose to lie hoping you wouldn't know or check or
B) Didn't bother and just made something up, hoping it would be OK or
C) someone told him what to say, and they either lied or recklessly made something up
If Ellam is a civil servant shouldn't he be disciplined? We are not playing games here, and civil servants can't think they can collaborate with this government and not be held accountable for breaching the rules.
Charles
July 3rd, 2009 10:43am Report this comment"zero per cent rise" sounds like a quotation from a Bernie Madoff novel, “ Safe Securities
Investments Manual for Novice.
Ansty Cowfold.
July 3rd, 2009 12:21pm Report this commentA 0 percent rise is to be preferred to a -1 percent rise. Unfortunately, neither comes near to the truth. It is understandable that many people dislike the Cameron Tories but to support the current regime seems to suggest a failure in the moral compass department.
It is like watching two fleas fight over a dead dog. The next phase of this great depression is going to sweep them all away anyway.
We need a new way of political thinking, based on truth, responsibility, traditional morality and pragmatism. The debt that this country is now incurring will never be repaid. A new world awaits us. Let us hope it is benevolent.
Mdme Defarge
July 7th, 2009 5:02pm Report this commentOh stop being epdantic with Fraser's odd bon mot - he can work out these bloody figures and it works for me.
Fraser please keep up the pressure and never, ever let any of them off the hook. You are one of the all-time greats.
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