PMQs Live Blog
David Blackburn 12:00pm
Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200.
1159: Still waiting for the main event.
12:02: And we're off, Brown paying tribute to the 5 soldiers killed and those injured by the rogue Afghan policeman.
12:04: Labour's Jamie Reid asks for the end of the postcode lottery on cancer screening. Brown says he will and launches an attack on Andrew Lansley - Ha! ha! Speaker Bercow, the Labour puppet-speaker tells him to be quiet.
12:05: Here's Cameron - what does the incident in Afghanistan say about our mentoring strategy and security in Afghanistan?
Good, perhaps a change of policy is finally being recognised.
Not by Brown at any rate - sticking to this is a rogue problem.
12:07: Cameron agrees, but says that the public will be concerned that our troops are not being safeguarded against such fifth columnists. Pointed question to which Brown has no specific answer - it is essential that we are NOT SEEN as an occupying army and we're stepping up our co-operation. Hasn't answered the question about the infilitration of a corrupt and inefficient organisation. Brown doesn't grasp the thrust of the question - wait for the review is the answer.
12:10: Cameron calls for stronger economic and social support behind the military efforts of the coalition. Calling for a single strong man to work with the UN, the coalition and Karzai's government.
Brown talks about corruption within Karzai's government, which he assures will stop, which in view of the men who helped secure Karzai's victory is a fantasy. He says that the move from heroin to wheat production in Helmand has been successful, which is far from certain but at least effort is being made.
12:12: Both Cameron and Brown call for the adoption of Kelly's recommendations in full. Why Cameron didn't raise the issue of the government, referenda and Lisbon defeats me - he should take the attack to the government and not be afraid about confronting European issues.
12:14: David Blunkett asks a plant about trusting a leader who reneges on "cast iron guarantees". It backfires because Bercow is on fire - "Can the Prime Minister tailor his answer to government policy", which as I understand it comprised the rejection of a cast-iron manifesto pledge. Brown can't make the attack stick - as I wrote yesterday, Labour's line on this will not work.
12:16: Clegg asks two questions suggesting that the problem in Afghanistan stems from the corrupt Karzai government. The Prime Minister assures Clegg that all will be better in the future. The two had this exact exchange three weeks ago and Brown assured Clegg that all would be better following the Afghan electoral commission's findings, which were delivered two weeks ago.
12:18-22: Succession of hilarious plants congratulating Brown about keeping his "cast iron guarantees" - if you excuse the pun, it's so laboured.
12:23: Praise for last week's Youth Parliament and Brown says he supports reducing the voting age to 16.
It's very tame session this.
12:25: Monmouth Tory David Davies wants more information about servicemen wounded in Afghanistan and their compensation.
12:26: Here come some Reliant Robin Statistics about the car scrappage scheme. Brown says it's a success and vindicates his scrappage scheme. Read Mark Bathgate on these pages for the alternative view.
12:29: Very interesting question from Lib Dem Will Rennie about Rossyth Dockyard becoming a Nuclear Graveyard for decommissioned subs - something that Brown specifically promised would not happen. Brown's repsonse is that without this government there wouldn't be a Rossyth Docks without this government - exactly Gordon.
12:30: Question about the worth of Afghan police and ANA - this tragic incident finally seems to have awakened supine minds.
12:32: Dr Ian Taylor wanst an assurance that scientists bearing politically difficult advice will not be shot. Brown supports Johnson. Harman's statement to follow.
VERDICT: Difficult day for Cameron with all the "cast-iron" nonsense, but he made some legitimate points about strategy in Afghanistan. Cameron should have asked a question about the government reneging on its manifesto referendum pledge, poor planning. For once I thought Clegg was more effective.
Generally, the House seems to have woken up to the fact that there is very serious strategic and tactical errors being made; understandably, in view of this morning's news, the issue domianted the debate.
Previous
DavidDP
November 4th, 2009 12:10pm Report this comment"Speaker Bercow, the Labour puppet-speaker"
I think we can stop this know, don't you? He's proving to be very good.
Kinglear
November 4th, 2009 12:21pm Report this commentI had a really weird experience which I suggest can only be the computer equivalent of Deja Vu. When I logged in at 11:15 or so, I got live PMQs and when I clicked on " more" up came a headline relating to 1970.
Thought I'd landed in Life on Mars...
DavidDP
November 4th, 2009 12:26pm Report this comment"Succession of hilarious plants congratulating Brown about keeping his "cast iron guarantees"
What like abolishing Boon and Bust? What ones are they talking about?
2trueblue
November 4th, 2009 12:32pm Report this commentDavidDP, 2 swallows do not a summer make.
Feste
November 4th, 2009 12:32pm Report this commentIf Bercow really is going to force Brown to focus on Government policy, rather than his version of what the Tories would do in his place, he will indeed prove to be a strong Speaker
Tiberius
November 4th, 2009 12:41pm Report this commentWhatever string of adjectives one might care to attach to the term "New Labour", juvenile must be the first (although since we had a series of planted questions in this case, one might verge towards infantile).
Kevyn Bodman
November 4th, 2009 12:42pm Report this commentMy analysis of the Blunkett question is different from yours.
It didn't matter that the Speaker limited Brown's answer to government policy; the important thing is that the question got in.
Blunkett and Brown got very close to successfully double-teaming Cameron.
Brown came out with a 'statesmanlike' answer about working with other countries and Cameron was exposed simply by each one referring to 'cast-iron guarantees'.
And hadn't the Conservatives anticipated something like this and primed one of their own with a question in response?
Poor planning by Dave and his advisers.
Cameron clearly lost that round.
Kevyn Bodman
November 4th, 2009 12:48pm Report this commentReducing the voting age to 16.
How about a post on this?
My first thoughts; it's ridiculous.
Who gains?
Any Colour but Brown
November 4th, 2009 12:50pm Report this comment"DavidDP
"Succession of hilarious plants congratulating Brown about keeping his "cast iron guarantees"
What are they talking about?"
I think it's a reference to the referendum in Labour's 2005 manifesto. Or maybe Labour's promise to be whiter-than-white. Or could it be their promise to "be tough on crime and the causes of crime"?
Dorothy Wilson
November 4th, 2009 1:09pm Report this commentThe slight problem with Bercow's change of tack - though generally welcome - is that we no longer see Brown in his usual hectoring mode that is so close to bullying.
Verity
November 4th, 2009 1:24pm Report this commentTiberius - You are typical of trite, smug close-minded British "thinking" (if I may so style it). The Marxists, Trots and Gramscis have stolen your country from under your noses in a mere 12 years and sold you out to a foreign power, and you sit typing that they are "juvenile" and "infantile". You are probably one of those people who blogged through the years that they "couldn't run a whelk stall" as they slipped your ancient rights and freedoms - like freedom of speech - and our ancient civil structures - out from under you in broad daylight.
I despaired when I read comments from myopic people like you over the last 12 years, but it's even more infuriating now you know what they've actually done and you haven't lost an ounce - or is it a gramme now? - of your myopic complacency.
Roger Daley
November 4th, 2009 1:28pm Report this commentBungler Brown couldn't even say "cast iron"
properly -
He kept stumbling and mumbling "iron-cast"
instead.
Eejit.
IH
November 4th, 2009 1:55pm Report this commentCameron should throw "iron cast" back at jonah brown at an appropriate moment.
teledu
November 4th, 2009 2:28pm Report this commentHow my stomach will wrench when I see Brown placing a wreath at the cenotaph.
JONNY
November 4th, 2009 2:35pm Report this comment'The Marxists, Trots and Gramscis have stolen your country from under your noses in a mere 12 years and sold you out to a foreign power,'
Which must be why Verity's voting Labour.
Anne Wotana Kaye
November 4th, 2009 2:55pm Report this commentYesterday another five British servicemen killed, whilst Brown drones on about bringing law.order and prosperity to a country called Afghanistan. He obviously thinks he is doing an excellent job here in Britain, law, order and prosperity wise. I then checked out the background of the man Brown has placed as Minister of Defence. Apart from once grabbing the greatest expenses in the MP rip-off scam, he was a trade unionist and poked around in Marxist circles for a while. Hardly a brilliant background for Defence.
Derek
November 4th, 2009 3:14pm Report this commentHundreds of tons of Iranian weapons including significant numbers of Katyusha rockets were discovered when Israeli forces with support from the US boarded a ship flying the flag of Antigua, a member of the Commonwealth,100 nautical miles off the coast of Israel. The epigones in the Parliament of Brussels Resident in London saw no more reason to raise that as a question for our deadbeat "Prime Minister" than they did the Lisbon Treaty. Can't we just send these people home and have them draw their salaries there; they would do less harm. In the meantime, we should be contemplating how to convene a British Constitutional Congress - is there any residual prerogative in the monarch to effect this?
Tiberius
November 4th, 2009 4:19pm Report this commentVerity: the kindest thing I can say to you is that you've missed my point.
That New Labour is treacherous (in the most damning sense of the word, ie, worthy of the death penalty), does not mean that they cannot also be infantile.
Now, as for reversing the advanced Gramsci philosophy, tell me what practical measures you would advise (and let's assume for the sake of argument Cameron goes under a bus this evening).
Over to you.
Peter From Maidstone
November 4th, 2009 4:22pm Report this commentHow we would know if any of the cabinet and others in positions of political influence were not still just as Marxist as they ever were and that they have not been successfully implementing a long standing plan to bring about a slow, grey revolution of socialist bureaucracy? How would we know? How could they prove this was not so?
The Laughing Cavalier
November 4th, 2009 4:30pm Report this commentBrown reading out the butchers bill makes me want to head for the Vomitorium. Same when I see him and his Ministers competing to see who can wear his poppy first.
BOO
November 5th, 2009 2:43am Report this commentKevyn B - "Who gains"? How about the trots and grams and NL? They know they've brainwashed all the kids.
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