Dogged resistance from Brown over Northern Rock

Mike

Brown's economic credentials are all he has left, he's not going to give them up easily. If Cameron succeeds in shredding them, then Brown is truly naked. It's going to be a very nasty fight. But this ignores what is really going on in the country. Labour is in melt-down. Two personal examples. My mother-in-law is recently widowed and has now sorted out her state pension and the pitiful company pension left to her. She is living on a pittance after council tax, food and bills yet she finds she is paying over £100 per month in tax. She has voted Labour all her life in every election but will now vote conservative in the next election to reduce tax. My wife's sister has also voted Labour in every election. She thinks that the country is a mess and crime-ridden, she has also fallen victim of the complex tax credits system and is getting harrased for £1,000 by the government. So she has also said she will vote for a change of government at the next election and vote Tory. Interestingly after my wife inquired both think the LibDems irrelevant. A small sample but telling of what is really going on.

Henry Rogers

Fraser, You are an insider and you are praising insider skills. The rest of the country isn't impressed to the same extent by someone with so little charm who doesn't answer straight questions and launches into rants instead. Even outsiders have a pretty good idea what the answers probably are, and have heard the rants often enough to distrust the statistics they contain. Blair could/can get away with that sort of thing because he has tremendous charm and wit. Even people who think he is a monster and that his policies were/are pants concede that. I doubt it would serve Cameron well to push really hard, as he did once early on. Fun as it was seeing Brown lose his temper and make a fool of himself that time, it wouldn't go down well with the public to do it every week. Meanwhile Brown looks more miserable every week even if he does survive or even score a point or two. And each time there is a toadying planted question Labour probably loses the votes of a few more viewers. Ahead lie two whole years of steady attrition.......

Oscar Miller

Brown is a political survivor Fraser because people like you won't go in for the kill. For years I thought the media gave politicians an undeserved hard time. With Brown it's quite the reverse. While Brown has a strange talent for supplying the rope to hang himself, the press keep coming in to slacken the noose.

David

Perhaps Mr Cameron should ask: "If the PM thinks inflation is only up by 2.1% why do the rest of us find it is up by c5% (with suitable examples such as Council tax, petrol and diesel fuel, loaf of bread etc etc)?

mike (not the mike above)

If you are on a low income you don't pay council tax. If you have a small company pension then that is the fault of the individual and not the government. If a pensioner is paying one hundred pounds income tax per month she needs to get her tax code corrected, or perhaps your idea of a pittance is slightly different to mine. I have done a quick calculation that tells me to pay the tax you say is being asked of your mother-in-law she has an income of nearly two hundred and fifty pounds per week. So I suggest rather than whining here you seek help and advice from your local Benefits and Tax offices.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Frazer, I agree with Henry Rogers. Just think how Brown would gain in stature if he condescended to address Cameron's questions calmly and accurately. Instead he just launches into a mendacious rant. And it's the same rant every week. He does not come out of it well.

adrian drummond

To Oscar Miller: I think New labour (Brown) has the media in their/his pocket(s). Even the DT has been infiltrated. Some of the more enlightened observers on these blogs can't understand why people aren't on the streets in protest. The answer is simple. They are at home gorging on a diet of soaps, celebrity hood, banal TV and influenced by a media (strongly lead by the BBC) that is broadly supportive of NU no matter what.

Simon

Fraser, Yes Brown was OK today. But how on earth cn you say that Clegg did well? Your enthusiasm for nationalisation is amusing but your continued love in with Clegg despite all is just getting boring

Chuck Unsworth

Brown's Pavlovian response is to bellow meaningless, irrelevant and dubious statistics. The fact that he is congenitally unable to directly answer a question or comment is now telling against him. Even his own side must by now be bored with the repetitious tractor production figures. So his personal credibility diminishes each time he appears at the Dispatch Box. In the end events will defeat him. It's the death of a thousand cuts. He can't dance and is too leaden and inflexible. He's got no friends, no charm, no wit, no class, no style at all. A glowering chained minotaur in a crumpled suit staring down the loaded barrels of his own destruction.

Nicholas Millman

Crick on Daily Politics thought that Brown scored over Cameron. Can't see it myself - his "answers" all the same tired old two-parters: party political bleating with meaningless stats followed by attack on Tories for things they allegedly did in the last century. The only improvement I saw today was that he refrained from bellowing questions at the bemused Conservative front bench.

Oscar Miller

Adrian Drummond - agreed.

mark

you know what erks - at the opening of PMQ we get (sadly) a routine sympathy note to the parents and family of yet another fallen serviceman. But the shallowness is shown - Cpl Gardener was in the REME - that's the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers - not the Royal and Mechanical Engineers. Rant over - sorry

carol42

Very surprised you didn't mention the blatant lie when Gordon said to Ken Clarke that he had inherited a difficult economy. You are one of my favourite columnists but I think you are wrong about Brown. Everyone I know, regardless of their politics, loathe the man. Having known him from scotland I have always known he was vastly overrated and suspected that as PM he would be useless, I just didn't realise how useless. His economic 'record' the first two years apart, is not nearly as good as the press seemed to think and even now he is getting a very easy time of it. This is the worst, most corrupt Government of my lifetime and I would vote for anyone to get rid of them. I did vote for Blair in 97 even when I suspected he was a bit of a charming charlatan because we really did need a change. I fear the damage done to this country may be too great to reverse.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Chuck Unsworth. If I may say so, your description of 'A glowering chained minotaur in a crumpled suit staring down the loaded barrels of his own destruction' is rather good. Have you ever thought of becoming a writer?

Chuck Unsworth

@ Trumpeter Lanfried. All too often.... Sadly, I have to make a living instead.

Novus

I was astonished, reading the transcript today, to note that Brown characterised Tory policy as "a fire sale of the assets; it means selling off the assets at the bottom of the market and losing billions of pounds of money." Astonished, that is, that even the bare-faced liar Brown could possibly have had the raw nerve to direct such an accusation at anyone else; doubly astonished that in his response Cameron completely let him off the hook, making not a single reference to Brown's fire sale of British gold, selling it at the bottom of the market and, of course losing billions of pounds "of money".

wen d

Carol opined:- His economic 'record' the first two years apart, is not nearly as good as the press seemed to think and even now he is getting a very easy time of it." I agree Carol. As a Scot, I have always been bemused as to what the sassenachs ever saw in the boorish baffoon. I take pride in that my fellow Scots saw through him ages ago which is why we now have a very professional SNP gov't here leading the way to a bright new future. Thank god the neanderthal "peoples party" are now doomed!

TrevorH

Unless Brown actually falls over and impales himself on his Biro he is always likely to get at least a draw. He only has to survive 6 questions and often opposition only ask 5 because they cannot risk being able to allow Brown a chance to rabbit on uncontradicted on a 6th answer. Given that he can get away with not answering the question I think PMQs are really over-rated. The main point should be to embarass Brown in front of his own backbenchers.

TrevorH

We have not yet got to the stage of where Brown is moving phantom divisions around the map table but with sycophants (and people high on the perception of their own intellect) like Mr and Mrs Balls in positions of influence then that moment cannot be far away.