Brown tries to shift the blame for Britain's economic troubles
Fraser Nelson 12:35pm
PMQs opened with perhaps the most worst planted question I have ever heard in the Commons and it’s worth a blog on its own. Robert Flello claimed his constituents “concerned about how economic…” (stumbles, looks at sheet) “em, how global economic issues… affect them. How does my Rt Hon Friend feel these events compare with those of the early 1990s when Britain was plunged into recession after recession?” This Brownite jargon sticks in the jaw so much that not even Labour backbenchers can read it without a script. And spot the key Brownite narrative: that there is “global economic turbulence” which is to be blamed if any bad things happen. The truth is that no other major economy is facing a slowdown as sharp as ours.
Brown replied that “right that people should be concerned what is happening in the global economy” (translated: oi, you at home, you should be worried about GLOBAL economic instability, not our fault, see, is it Darling? ). And then his statistics. Inflation is down to 2.1% —“half the inflation of” America, jobs up 175,000 in the quarter and “up by a quarter of a million over the year”
Now I have blogged before about Brown’s smoke and mirrors over inflation. But I will bet whatever CoffeeHousers want to wager that every one of those new jobs was accounted for by immigration. Think about it: a quarter of a million new jobs over a year, Brown says. Immigration has been running at 400,000 for each of the last five years and 510,000 in 2006. So when he boasts about “the best employment record in history” he can thank immigration – something he does not like to take credit for. Strip away the immigrants and Brown’s record on jobs is dismal – and far worse than Thatcher’s.
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Comments
JH
January 16th, 2008 1:10pmBrown uses figures the way a drunkard uses lamp posts; for support rather than illumination.
Mike
January 16th, 2008 1:26pmIsn't it about time the Tories held Browns figures up for ridicule as the lies they are. The emperor has no clothes and it's high time Brown is exposed (metophorically speaking!)
Austin Barry
January 16th, 2008 1:35pmI really don't think I can take another two years of Brown's dissembling dithering, fake narratives and lets-blame-buggins strategies. Combined with his charmless, humourless persona and obsidian features he seems like Central Casting's idea of an assistant Pentonville hangman circa 1948, and, honestly, it is all too much.
Baskerville
January 16th, 2008 1:42pmBrown clearly ‘misled’ the House. He said that inflation was down from 1997, and stood at 2.1%. According to the latest available figures from ONS, 4th quarter 2007 inflation was: 4.2% (all) 3.1% (minus mortgages) 3.0% (minus mortgages and indirect taxes) 2.5% (minus housing as well). The ONS comparable figures for 2nd Quarter 1997 (what Labour inherited) they were: 2.6% 2.6% 2.1% 2.1% You do the math.
Richard Bridger
January 16th, 2008 1:47pmI'll be you everything I have Fraser, because I'm one of those people with new jobs, and I'm English. So what do I win? You're right about immigration making his employment record look good, but then it isn't Brown's fault that employers are so keen to employ immigrants rather than natives. Having had the past few months working with both, I'd have picked more Poles than Englishmen to keep their jobs if I had to choose. I understand your exhaustion with Brown trying to take the credit for all that is good and holy, but don't get as bad as him with the stats just because you view them from a different angle. There are good business reasons why immigrants have been able to find work over here when some Brits can't. Try to stick some analysis on this thing in place of the overdone polemics.
Nicholas Millman
January 16th, 2008 1:51pmBrown doesn't answer questions during PMQ's - he just asks them and the speaker lets him. Disgraceful. Cameron needs to get cute with these figures and launch a statistics attack of his own to expose the lies. He missed the opportunity to link the employment figures quoted by Brown with the NI numbers given to illegal immigrants. And that is just in the security industry. How many more of Brown's "employment up" numbers are illegal immigrants with shiny new NI numbers supplied by the Ministry of Incompetence?
Fraser
January 16th, 2008 1:58pmRichard, Brown was referring to net job creation (I hope!). And point taken on polemics - plenty of those, done better, on the web. Baskerville, the ONS do a monthly CPI series where you can get the exact May07 period which McIntosh was prob referring to.
Dylan Murray
January 16th, 2008 1:58pmIf you are going to write columns castigating Brown’s misuse of figures, you should at least be consistent in your own... The only relevant figure for the migrant jobs number of has to be a net one 175k not 500k, and even that does not tell the whole story as will include dependents etc… (Although your point is still probably correct).
Ray
January 16th, 2008 2:18pmRichard - if a Government pays people to sit on their a***s (like this one does) and do nothing, don't be surprised if our low-skilled citizens behave completely economically rationally and do just that!
RIchard Bridger
January 16th, 2008 2:39pmBravo Fraser, you're the first national blogger who has the contrition just to accept a point if it's accurate. Coffee House has always been my favourite blog, and now you're top dog on it. I'll even let you off the hook over the bet (I would check, but I'm not paid to be posting on here!). Ray, my point wasn't that the government's welfare policy is right, it's that I'm against an atavistic anger against immigrants getting jobs when actually they deserve them because they are harder working than many natives who do indeed just sit on their asses. I was defending a liberal immigration policy, not a failing welfare one.
Stephen Rothbart
January 16th, 2008 3:49pmIs this Flello's performance the real definition of brown nosing?
RB
January 16th, 2008 5:26pmHeh, point taken. I was a little overcome with shock at some humility on display, and that is worth an OBN. But if it gets me a job....
James Kentish-Barnes
January 16th, 2008 5:36pmYou guy's should read this, gives you a whole new perspective for attacking Brown, a spark of genius perhaps?
TGF UKIP
January 16th, 2008 6:14pmDon't blame Gordon, it's the Tories wot let him get away with it. Imagine if John Major had tried the same game twelve years ago, the New Labour pack would have shredded him. Imagine too if in 2005 the Tory Party hadn't collectively taken leave of its senses and allowed the Notting Hill media claque to manipulate it, would Basher Davis be today allowing Gordon to get away with it?