A sombre scene and a shift in power
Lloyd Evans 1:33pm
Poppy day came early to Westminster today. Brown began proceedings by reciting the names of the 37 men killed in Afghanistan over the summer. This took two minutes. The house was silent, funereal, almost awe-struck with the solemnity of the occasion. Brown looked like a man deeply moved by personal grief as he worked his slow way through the deadly list.
Ann Winterton punctured the mood with the first question, suggesting that once the Lsibon treaty is ratified the government's first duty will be 'to further the objectives of Europe in preference to those of Britain'. Brown denied this again referenced the Afghan conflict in response.
When his trun came, Cameron had no choice but to add his sympathies and to engage constructively in the debate about the war budget. He asked about rehabilitation services and the mental health of veterans. The PM blandly assured him that everything possible was being done for our service personnel. Cameron then quoted a member of the TA who claims he’s being paid for only half the training days he must complete before his deployment. This makes a mockery of Brown’s promise about adequate funding. But the mood of the house restrained Cameron from making a fight of it. You can’t have a punch up at a memorial service.
Nick Clegg rose. Even before he’d said a word he was howled at enthusiastically by both sides. Somehow he brings out the inner bully in his opponents. He wondered why our troops were being sent to fight for the ‘deeply corrupt’ regime in Kabul. Brown asked him to wait for the final result of the presidential election and pointed out, rightly enough, that the troops’ great achievement is to have enabled an election to take place at all. Clegg pursued him with a novel idea. Brown should phone up Karzai and order him to form a government of national unity. Lovely plan, but Brown isn’t Afghanistan’s head of state. Perhaps it’s this high-mindedness and impracticality that encourages MPs to shout nasty things at Clegg.
After the party leaders had spoken, the debate turned to parochial matters. The girl guides were congratulated on their centenary. Stingy banks were scolded for not lending cash more readily. The MP for Ayr fretted about a smoky new power station. Gordon Prentice told the house that his local A&E had gone missing and he wanted it back. Shivering pensioners were mentioned, and the PM reassured us that thanks to his winter fuel allowance they could turn on the second bar of the electric fire. Great! The Commons seemed to have turned into an impotent local council. In other words, Ann Winterton’s prediction had already come to pass. Certainly it seems strange that our troops are fighting in Afghanistan to defend us ‘on the streets of Britain’ while our sovereignty is being meekly surrendered in the corridors of Whitehall.
In the closing seconds, the session finally caught fire. Sir Michael Spicer tilted at the PM with one of his lethal short thrusts. ‘Will he confirm that he will soldier on to the bitter end?’ Brown began, ‘We have got a programme for government …’ but he was immediately engulfed with Tory laughter.
Effectively the shift of power has already taken place. In a BBC interview just before PMQs, Theresa May was asked about rising unemployment and she spoke of Tory plans for business. ‘We’re bringing in James Dyson,’ she said, ‘we’re stimulating entrepreneurship’ and so on. Throughout she used the present tense. The assumption that political authority now lies with the Tories wasn’t challenged by her opposite number in the studio, John Hutton. In fact, he didn’t even notice it.
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DavidDP
October 14th, 2009 3:11pm Report this comment"Brown looked like a man deeply moved by personal grief "
You what?
MisterE
October 14th, 2009 3:13pm Report this comment"Nick Clegg rose. Even before he’d said a word he was howled at enthusiastically by both sides. Somehow he brings out the inner bully in his opponents ......... Perhaps it’s this high-mindedness and impracticality that encourages MPs to shout nasty things at Clegg."
Or, perhaps it's more to do with him suggesting that Legg's review be widened to take in mortgages & other expenses.
benny
October 14th, 2009 3:32pm Report this commentBrown looked like a man who deliberately - yes, deliberately - subdued the House to avoid a tougher line of questioning.
I don't believe Brown has one iota of humanity in him.
Steve
October 14th, 2009 3:44pm Report this commentIs Brown in mourning for his dead reputation, dead career and dead party?
The Foxhole Atheist
October 14th, 2009 3:45pm Report this commentBrown's speak-your-weight mithering looked and sounded like a man attempting to put as far from his mind as possible his personal share of culpability for these deaths. I am absolutely convinced that at heart he believes these men were killed because their personal fieldcraft skills weren't up to much: the right force levels are in place, they've got all the kit they need, so there's no other explanation.
And, as well as his compulsive thumping of the dispatch box, during the Afghanistan statement, he was rubbing his left calf nervously with his right foot, like a charmless, glowering cricket trying to attract a mate.
Liz Brown
October 14th, 2009 3:45pm Report this commentBrown did indeed look deeply moved - probably owing to the fact that he has had to dig into his own pocket to find the 12 grand he has to pay back.......
patricia
October 14th, 2009 3:57pm Report this commentDyson?!
HAHA!
He's the expert on UK jobs who got rid of 1000 of them when moved his factories to Malaysia!
Another Top Notch Conservative advisor.
Though as nothing compared to its list of contributors and financiers - yup, almost 100% made up of Hedge Fund managers.
Carroll Barry-Walsh
October 14th, 2009 4:20pm Report this commentPerhaps you could remind us of how much time Brown spent on Afghanistan in his recent conference speech.
Roger Daley
October 14th, 2009 4:23pm Report this commentCrocodilw tears from Brown, used up a load of PMQT on his "grief"
Solve the problem : Back the troops with plenty of equipment and let them take the fight to the Taleban OR Bring our boys home !
He hasn't attended one homecoming of coffins at Brize Norton nor has he attended any funeral while he lets the Ministry fight the limbless and wounded soldiers looking for compensation in the courts.
Get out Brown. Now.
Simon Denis
October 14th, 2009 4:25pm Report this commentIf only Cameron had said that the prime minister's roll call of the fallen was indeed moving, but whose failure adequately to provision the army has ensured that it should be so long?
Prodicus
October 14th, 2009 4:36pm Report this commentWhat Benny said.
TrevorsDen
October 14th, 2009 4:47pm Report this commentPatricia haven't you noticed that Labours City minister is a former hedge fund chairman?
He is also was involved in Aspen Re who saved 100million in tax by salting it away in an overseas business.
Jez
October 14th, 2009 4:48pm Report this commentA pantomime of cynical, self serving fools.
Allan
October 14th, 2009 4:53pm Report this commentTo be honest I am fed up with PMQ's being wasted with the role call of the dead in theatre. There are better and more sincere ways to celebrate the hard work and bravery of our forces than deliberately solemnifying(is this a word?) the house.
I believe it is only done so that the Labour party can try and show they care about our troops when in fact they don't give 2 hoots.
Barbara
October 14th, 2009 5:14pm Report this commentHang on, I thought people weren't allowed to read out names of war dead within a certain distance of Parliament.
But it's OK to do it to try and make yourself look better, is it, Brown?
Prodicus
October 14th, 2009 5:28pm Report this commentFacile lip service for political image purposes. It neither convinces nor consoles.
If we should ever have the misfortune of a WWlll on the lines of WWI and WWII, should we expect the whole of Commons business to be set aside for a faux-solemn roll call, or will MPs get on with the work they are paid for?
Any Colour but Brown
October 14th, 2009 7:09pm Report this commentGrief!!! How much do you think that cock-ring cost him?
bill
October 14th, 2009 7:57pm Report this commenttwo points:
1. Brown knew full well that you can't pick a fight at a memorial service, that's why he made it his shield today.
2. What is the point of an election if it is rigged.
2.
emil
October 14th, 2009 8:33pm Report this commentPatricia
Myners with a y - the hedge fund minister.
Advisers with an e
d- Must try harder
logdon
October 14th, 2009 8:42pm Report this comment'Barbara
October 14th, 2009 5:14pm'
Nice point Barbara. One rule for us, one for them when they think there's a bit of political capital in it.
Let's face it, this is pure theatre as far as Brown is concerned.
One time the Labour Party would have been a natural refuge for our Armed Services non officers, comprised as they were of white working class patriots who, for various reasons joined up.
Now? They are a complete joke, detested and reviled for the two faced attitudes and this sort of greasily hollow mock contrition.
I read an Army blog some time ago in which a squaddie of the old order suggested, that if an officer senior enough gave them the word, they'd be ready to see off this government.
Obviously fighting talk but with enough bite in it's message to suggest all was not well in the ranks.
Once they feel that the mission has been hijacked by dithering and parsimonious politicians for their own grubby purpose morale will rot and wilt. Then what?
Obama, who lets face it, is controller of the war's destiny is wavering and talking of accomodation with the Taliban.
How does that make the troops feel when only a short while ago the deal was to kill as many as possible?
Basra really is the yardstick and what ignomony that created with our boys, holed up in an airport, mortar shells hurling in and not one thing they could do about it.
That's Labour's idea of conducting a war? Pretty soon if the pathetic Potus gets his way it’ll be the US’s next. All soft caps and accomodation but still the Union Jack and Old Glory covered coffins returning in a steady stream.
If this is the end game, is it really worth it?
Austin Barry
October 14th, 2009 10:32pm Report this commentWatching Brown listing the dead, Sassoon's 'Base Details' came to mind:
"If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap," I'd say."
Brown of course has a fine head of hair.
Helen Wright
October 14th, 2009 10:32pm Report this commentAm I correct in recalling that it was Call-Me-Dave who first starting referring to dead soliders by their names and then, not to be outdone by the personal touch, the Labour PM immediately followed suit?
Still, who believes any of them when they say "their names will be remembered?" Ask Brown to name just 10 of them, and he'll have ad lib for the remainder of an interview, so he won't get the question a second time. Liars, all of them.
And for the record - these people are fighting for a corrupt government, not for the nation. The people did not send them to war. Labour did.
paulg
October 14th, 2009 10:56pm Report this commentWell at least Mr brown had some sense of shame as he read out the names of the fallen.
The Army began a battle in the spring & summer, without the right equipment and a terrible lack of support from politicians.
For seven years the Army have been in Afghanistan without the right equipment, largely as a result of Mr Brown priorities.
Mr Brown states today he will send troops in support of a battle that raged over the summer and now draws to a conclusion as a result of the weather.
No support, no troops, no equipment, thats what the British army in the field had to contend with from this man.
Only now as it is politically expedient does he announce initiatives.
We have watched in silence as the bodies of young men have processed thru the narrow lanes of England.
Now we will turn on the man who abandoned them at their fateful hour.
Mr Brown your peers accuse you, the electorate will judge you, and history will condemn you, for each and every one of those young mens deaths.
You cry crocodile tears only for yourself do you lament
The Laughing Cavalier
October 15th, 2009 8:58am Report this commentAll the emotion of a butcher reading an itemised bill out loud.
Don
October 15th, 2009 11:01am Report this comment".....Am I correct in recalling that it was Call-Me-Dave who first starting referring to dead soliders by their names and then, not to be outdone by the personal touch, the Labour PM immediately followed suit?....."
No you are in fact incorrect. It was Blair who started this charade in an attempt too look as if he really did give a sh1t the people were dying in a war he started.
Malcolm
October 15th, 2009 11:29am Report this commentI'm afraid I regard McBust's 'grief' as totally synthetic, just as I will regard his attendance at the Centotaph on the 8th November an offence to all of us, but particularly to those who were sent to war ill-equipped, thanks to his disregard for the services both as Chancellor and PM.
Gut-wrenching it certainly is.
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