Cameron gets the better of Brown in clash over Northern Rock
Fraser Nelson 2:07pm
Great fireworks today over Northern Rock. Cameron started with sombre questions about taxpayers’ money involved - Can Brown guarantee the safe return of the taxpayers’ money given Northern Rock? Was he advised the liability could rise so high? Could it rise higher than £55bn? No answer. Brown tried his trick of last week of asking Cameron a question so often that Michael Martin intervened. “He doesn’t have to answer the Prime Minister’s question,” says Michael Martin. Not until the next general election, at any rate.
Then for Cameron’s coup de theatre. “I’ll tell you what you did. When it came to the need for a total guarantee of deposits, you dithered and delayed. When it came to pushing for a sale with Lloyds TSB, you dithered and delayed. When it came to advice you were getting to sell this bank, you dithered and delayed. Why did you dither and delay? Because you were planning a general election?” It was brilliant, a good old schoolhouse spanking. Cameron has mastered the art of speaking down to Brown - using “you” rather than the parliamentary “he.” Brown’s voice almost shook as he replied “there was no offer from Lloyds TSB as he alleges”. No offer, because its approach was mishandled.
Nick Clegg had a brilliant point about the RICS projecting that home repossessions will rocket by 50 percent this year to 45,000. Brown was gloating about Americans losing their homes recently: this is toxic to him. Then Clegg goes and spoils it by accusing Brown of allowing “irresponsible lending practices to destabilise the market” – would Clegg prefer the low-paid not to own a home? Brown tried to swat him away, with Huhne’s “Calamity Clegg” dossier. He won’t be able to swat the issue of repossessions away so easily.
Challenged about Peter Hain, Brown replied saying the “Work Secretary” is doing well because “unemployment is down, jobs are up” – again, how much Brown owes those Poles. “Incapacity benefit is down” yes, and falling at the same speed Venice is sinking.
Three cheers for Anne McIntosh, who corrected Brown’s inflation narrative with the figures the public are all too familiar with. Food up 7 percent, energy up 15 percent, petrol up 20 percent. “Why is the rate of inflation running higher now than the rate his government inherited?” “But it’s not, inflation is 2.1 percent,” he chirped. That was a simple untruth. CPI inflation is 2.1 percent now and was 1.6 percent in May 1997, when Brown came into office. How can he get away with claiming otherwise? Does he believe it himself?
A great moment when John Heppell prefaced an organ donoation question by saying he does not envisage a "great demand for my kidney or liver" - and someone shouted "or your brain!" Quite.
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Comments
dearieme
January 16th, 2008 4:04pm"would Clegg prefer the low-paid not to own a home?" Are we meant to assume that home-owning is always, and for everyone, The Right Thing To Do?
Bill (Scotland)
January 16th, 2008 10:30pmI agree with your analysis - Cameron played a blinder today. However, listening to a discussion later in the afternoon on BBC R4 'PM' I think it was it was made to sound as if Cameron had lost and Brown had won. I still think Brown was rubbish today, embarrassingly so, and I could hardly believe what I was hearing on the 'PM' programme. This was the most blatant example I've heard recently of BBC bias, admittedly the host(ess) tried to redress the balance, but half-heartedly, compared with the onslaught of Labolur 'luvviedom' from the guests and an eual measure of ant-Cameron from the same source.
tisk...tisk
January 16th, 2008 11:09pmdearie dearieme - I absolutely agree. why is our society ABSOLUTELY obsessed with the idea of home ownership. Not everyone dreams of the rise and fall of the value of bricks and mortar. For some renting a property offers the best short and long term solution to their housing needs. And those who do prefer this do not need to be patronised for being renters not owners.
Lee Griffin
January 17th, 2008 12:51amHave to agree slightly with dearieme. What is the point of letting everyone get on the housing ladder if the way that you do it means that the bottom rungs will snap? I would say that everyone should have the opportunity to own their own home if it is sustainable, but clearly it has been forced rather than nurtured to reach such horrible statistics of repossession.
Polly
January 17th, 2008 9:03amLabour, and James Naughtie, think its ok to buy property so long as its not anywhere near a school. If anyone buys a house near a school they will automatically be subjected to a campaign of villification on account of the fact that they might be schemeing members of the middle classes.
Fraser Nelson
January 17th, 2008 9:07amGents, surely the solution to the housing problems is to stop the artificial constraint on supply (ie, planning regulations?) England has now leapfrogged the Netherlands to become Europe's most congested country - and our urbanisation ratio is far smaller than the Dutch. Of course most housing pressure comes from immigration, which is a result of our state-sponsored joblessness, which one might argue is another root of the problem. But if banks want to lend to low-income families on rates they both understand and accept, I think it's fair. And home ownership promotes "vigorous virtues" as Shirley Letwin said (tho im sure her son would disagree)
maria
January 17th, 2008 4:31pmFraser - another solution to the housing problem is to utilize what is already in exsistence. Currently there are 1000`s of empty properties available in large cities - (relax..... I don`t mean 2nd homes). What about the many empty offices/flats above shops in the centre of towns. If these were converted and let/sold there would be an almost instant supply of affordable city centre housing. Also it would at a stroke re-populate town centres and make them safer places to be after the shops are closed. Currenlty they are often deserted after dark and attract gangs who consider them to be a safe generally people free place to hang out.
Adrian Fox
January 17th, 2008 6:04pmThe first thing to do is produce a massive change by getting house prices to fall; this isnt a simple matter of supply and demand (which can be tackled by making those empty properties available, and encouraging more people to live in rented apartments as elsewhere in Europe) but prices are fuelled by the largely tax free increases from which owners have been able to benefit. Housing has been seen far more as a safe investment than as a means to provide shelter. So while we are enjoying our retirement in France with a couple of hundred thou in the bank, having benefited from this crazy system, the next generation is paying the cost of our cashing in our unearned income. In the French system, gains from the increase in property prices are taxed far more stringently and as a result there is less incentive for markets to force prices up. Everyone benefits in the end.
Jessica
January 18th, 2008 10:46pmFraser you are wrong the answer to the housing crisis is not planning at all because large developers are buying up land and deliberatley not building therefore demand is outstripping supply and prices continue to rise. However the biggest cause of this problem is the whole buy to let industry as they generally buy up the properties on the lower rung of the ladder that would normally be purchased by first time buyers, this results in even the starter homes being too expensive. I bet all the people on this blog implying that not everyone should own their own home are property owners!
Daniel24
January 18th, 2008 10:51pmA property owning democracy is the best sort of country to be living in. Thatcher understood this and one of the reasons she was able to garner support from the working classes was because she brought the dream of property ownership to the masses.