Brownies galore at PMQs
Fraser Nelson 3:53pm
My, what a lot of Brownies. I can only assume today’s PMQs was one of those weird things, where no two people can agree. Many of my colleagues in the press gallery thought it was dull. I was riveted. Cameron was taking Brown on home turf and having him resort to his litany of fake facts. Cameron was full of unscripted remarks, showing fluency and confidence. Sure, his gags weren’t roof-raisers, but it’s like Dr Johnson’s dog with improvised lines at PMQs. It’s not that improvisation is done well, it that it’s done at all. You could almost feel the two men’s contempt for each other. Brown dismissing Cameron as man who can’t do his arithmetic and Cameron responding that one duff PM plus one duff Chancellor equals one mammoth economic mess.
Remember, the Tory strategy is to have Brown say “inflation? What inflation?” and say to the public “look, he doesn’t understand or feel your pain. We do.” But inflation was by no means the only Brownie on display today. Here’s a quick Fisk of some other “facts.”
1) Repossessions were just 27,000 last year, against 200,000 in the first two years of the 1990s. Nick Clegg’s right: repossession is emphatically back. It is forecast by RICS to jump to 45,000 this year, a figure likely to be revised upwards – the highest since 1992. At this rate, they will next year surpass their peak under the Tories. Now is not the time for Brown to say “What repossessions?"
2) Unemployment is 8% in Germany, 8% in France – the UK has unemployment “half the rate of our European partners.” Huh? This is his “metric switch” con again. This only works if you compare the ILO count of France and Germany to the UK claimant count of 2.5%. The latest Eurostat figures show 7.1% Euro area unemployment with the UK on 5.1%, all on ILO basis. Since when was five half of seven?
3) Inflation is 2.5% in the UK, 4% in the US and 3% in Europe. A favourite trick. The US calculates inflation in a different way (ie, in urban areas only) incomparable to our CPI (as an extensive US Statistics Bureau paper says). As for the Euro v UK inflation, I refer y’all to Brownie No1 here.
4) Inflation was 10% under the Tories. Yes RPI was, for three months in 1990. This has never been true for CPI, to which Brown referred to in generating his 2.5% figure. An honest comparison would say that RPI was 10% for a bit and is 4.1% now.
5) Unemployment was 3m under the Tories. And is keeping 5.2m on out-of-work benefits today so much better?
6) The basic rate of income tax going is down from 22p to 20p in the pound. This is the Tax Con Budget trick again – are we really so dumb as to forget that the 10p starting rate has been abolished? It was a tax-raising budget, as everyone realised about two hours after Brown sat down for his notorious last budget.
7) Banks have gone under in Germany and America. But no one, in any nation on the planet, has a government which has lumbered its taxpayers with £110bn debt as a result. Other countries contained this within the banking system.
8) That David Cameron was an economic adviser to Norman Lamont. Untrue. Cameron was a general bag-carrier in the Treasury – emphatically not the Ed Balls figure to which Mr Brown alludes.
All the above won Brown many cheers in the house. But if anyone was watching in the country, they’d see a Callaghan-esque detachment from their concerns. This is such dangerous territory for him to be lured on to. He seems unable to shake his addiction to these Brownies, these little exaggerations, these carefully honed devices to mislead the house and the nation. And one day, people will just stop believing him.
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Oscar Miller
March 26th, 2008 4:23pm Report this commentA masterly fisking Fraser. The emails read out in response to PMQs on the DP all bore out your contention that Brown was riling the public - people were not duped by the 'tax cut' con (not something anyone on a low income overlooks) or taken in by Brown's low inflation boasts. "One day people will just stop believing him"? I get the impression that day has already arrived.
J H Holloway
March 26th, 2008 4:24pm Report this commentCould I introduce you to the Livingstone version of Brownies?
Thom Yorke 'interviews' Livingstone in last Sunday's Observer and Lenin brings up the £25 daily charge for big engines and the soon-to-fail bike hire scheme copied from Paris
"So although you might say, "This only removes 5,000 to 7,000 tonnes of carbon by hitting the 4x4s,"' he continues, warming to his theme, 'it actually provides the funding that will put in the cycle ways and you'll end up with half a million tonnes less carbon emissions."
So Lenin claims that the planned £25 c-charge will tax big engines off the road - but it will also provide the funding to install the dim-wit cycle scheme.
Can anybody explain how you can raise money from a tax that is set so high, drivers won't pay it?
And if they do keep driving and paying, you can still remove '5000 tonnes' of Co2 from the atmosphere?
A prime Greenie, perhaps.
The Wonderful Jones
March 26th, 2008 4:39pm Report this commentKeep up the Brownies, I love em.
John of Enfield
March 26th, 2008 4:56pm Report this commentYou hit the nail on the head.
Brown thinks he is scoring points in the Chamber when, in reality, he is just riling the voters with these monstrous lies & obfuscations.
He and his government are truly Orwellian in their use of "double speak". (The objective of which is to avoid us even THINKING for ourselves).
Adam
March 26th, 2008 5:07pm Report this comment"Repossessions were just 27,000 last year, against 200,000 in the first two years of the 1990s."
Your "fisk" doesn't deny this, but talks about future projections - I assume, therefore, that Brown's claim is not untrue, because you'd surely have taken him down if it were. Not really much of a fisk.
mart
March 26th, 2008 5:08pm Report this commentPoint 6 - one is speechless with incredulity. Even to raise the subject of the 22-to-20p drop in the basic rate will immediately remind everyone of the abolition of the 10p rate. Extraordinary. On Point 7 I disagree somewhat (but I would like to see some good analysis from other Coffee-Housers). To say that costs are contained within the "banking system" is not quite the whole story I think. Costs are never contained - someone always pays. Surely we will all pay, one way or another, via loss of liquidity in, and higher costs associated with, lending and borrowing as a result of a takeover of a failed bank. This I think is equally true, whether a takeover be within the "banking system" or by a government, because the same fundamentals are at work: if a business fails, people suffer loss, and there is an associated recessionary effect. Maybe someone with better economics understanding will come and put me right though...
mike
March 26th, 2008 5:17pm Report this comment"Cameron was full of unscripted remarks" Now that's just being silly. Cameron wouldn't know an unscripted remark if it came out and bit him while he was doing his daily mirror, mirror on the wall bit.
Adam
March 26th, 2008 5:24pm Report this commentOn your point (5) - 5.2m on out-of-work benefits is indeed a lot, but in May 1997 there were 5.5m on out-of-work benefits - important to bear that in mind (and fairest to mention it) when criticising the current figure and making historical comparisons. See http://www.dwp.gov.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases/2007/may/stat160507-lms.asp
Fraser Nelson
March 26th, 2008 5:28pm Report this commentAdam, on repossession Brown was using his "false proxy" technique - using last year's repossession figures were taken as a proxy for today's situation (which Clegg was complaining about). Of course last year's 27,000 is no proxy for today's 45,000. And I love how Brown produces this 200,000 figure out of a hat by rolling two years into one and attempting to dwarf last year's figure even further. Our magician uses many methods to mislead, but rarely outright lies. His repertoire is far richer.
The Wonderful Jones
March 26th, 2008 5:31pm Report this commentOh, meant to add that when he was in Stevenage yesterday, Gordon Brown said that crime in the town was down. What he failed to mention was that detection rates were also down. Funny how he failed to mention that, wasn't it? So much for community policing: http://www.herts.police.uk/crime_figures/February2008/Herts%20Observatory%20-%20CDRP%20Stevenage.pdf
Fraser Nelson
March 26th, 2008 5:34pm Report this commentAdam, my point is that Brown talks about millions on the dole as being a nightmare relic from the Tory past – contrasted with his record unemployment. The truth is rather more complex. No one’s claiming dole as they’re on other benefits. After ten years of growth, it’s a shameful total.
Adam
March 26th, 2008 5:39pm Report this comment"The truth is rather more complex". Indeed. Advice for fiskers, as well as fiskees. Otherwise, everyone can be accused, justly, of spin.
Caroline
March 26th, 2008 7:26pm Report this commentFraser you say in reference to the PM......."these little exaggerations, these carefully honed devices to mislead the house and the nation"...but who said this in reference to Cameron's food list and inflation -
"........ the ONS figures actually suggest the Tories exaggerated somewhat, but Labour's financial rebuttal unit is closed down/running the DFES so they wont get caught. This time. Huge regional variations tho. -
Scary, I wish I could blame Brown for inflation - but look at the longer figures and most items I mention are cheaper in real terms. Some cheaper in nominal terms: teabags 148p/250g Jan08, v 156p on Mar98. Bananas 88p/kilo Jan08, v 104p in May97. So the Tories have chosen selectively" -
"Most goods on the Tory list are cheaper, in real terms, than ten years ago. Other items, like instant coffee and bananas, are lower even in nominal prices" -
"Can we blame Brown for such high inflation? Not really" -
David
March 26th, 2008 8:42pm Report this commentI was amused to hear Mr Brown berating the banks for "lack of transparency" (think MPs expenses) and the sins of off balance sheet liabilities (think HMGs PFI schemes and unfunded pension liabiliites). Cameron should have picked him up on these remarks.
His apparent discovery that the financial crisis was caused by "liquidity" problems and not "solvency" problems was also a surprise. Surely one of the first rules of lending and borrowing is that it is most unwise to borrow short and to lend long - just what Northern Rock did to the extreme. It beggars belief that Mr Brown`s regulatory system failed to identify this as an issue at the bank.
PS I heard you on BBC News with Polly Toynbee. She sounds like a paid up disciple of the Goebbels school of propaganda too.
Nick Kaplan
March 26th, 2008 9:09pm Report this commentAnother one is how, when Brown calculates average inflation under the preceding 18 years of Tory government, he conveniently forgets to mention that this average is significantly increased due to the fact that when Mrs. Thatcher came to power there was a 25% rate of inflation that had been caused by the preceding economic incompetence of his own party! In addition his reference to the fact that interest rates rose drastically in 1992 conveniently leaves out the cause of this increase, our membership of the ERM, which he supported!
Praguetory
March 26th, 2008 10:02pm Report this commentUnfortunately I only got the soundbites from today's PMQs, but I was astonished that he was claiming that income taxes were coming down. As a fellow observer, it seems that Brown's repertoire is exhausted - his falsehoods are now being recycled - all Brown's cards are on the table for all to see and it's not a strong hand.
TrevorH
March 26th, 2008 10:40pm Report this commentWake up Adam, anyone home there ... ?
Sally C
March 27th, 2008 1:20am Report this commentThe true repossession figure is much higher.
A new range of companies, some of which are less than reputable have swooped into the market buying up the homes of those in mortgage difficulties. The 'owner' becomes the tenant in exchange for a knock down sale price.
Unfortunately, the former owner often ends up with a short lease after which and they are forced out or face unaffordable rent hikes. In some cases, the company which bought the house become insolvent and the house is repossessed from the new owner through no fault of the original.
These families do not find their way into the repssession statistics as they loose their home from a rented position.
The net effect of losing your home is much the same, with an added period of trauma inbetween and even less equity to show for it by the end.
Fraser Nelson
March 27th, 2008 1:40am Report this commentCaroline (where have you been?), you perhaps confuse Coffee House for a Cameroon cheerleading website. When Dave messes up, or his team indulge in Brown-style statistical tricks, we sock it to 'em. But Cameron has not, to the best of my knowledge, misled MPs in the House. Brown is starting to do at every PMQs.
Serf
March 27th, 2008 6:51am Report this comment"Can we blame Brown for such high inflation? Not really"
You are right. However, neither can we give him the credit for the last few years of lower inflation. That is down to China.
What Gold Trader Gordon is guilty of however, is the fact that we were totally unprepared for the downturn.
George Hinton
March 27th, 2008 3:43pm Report this commentGordo the Ineffectual is living in a parallel universe, that is totally divorced from any but his sychopanthic supporters.
His belief is, that he is an economic genius and if the wheels have come of the cart, it is as a result of the policies of the perfidious Tories, all those years back, who are still responsible.
Unfortunately the electorate are no longer interested, preferring instead, the far easier policy of assuming ALL politicians are liars and everything said is a load of tosh.
Clive Day
March 30th, 2008 9:37am Report this commentReading your execellent Blog I was surprised to find the suggestion that there are still people out there who believe anything McBroon says. But I guess that's the consequence of 10 years of 'Education, education, education...'.
Further, on the Unemployment figures you fail to mention one other 'Brownie' - Labours tactic of keeping the unemployment figures down by the creation of 10,000's of public sector non-jobs at inflated salaries and pensions which the rest of us mere mortals (currently) pay for. This is one pigeon that is yet to come home to roost .... but it will ...........
jonathanhdavies
March 30th, 2008 6:22pm Report this commentWhy OH why can't anyone nail Ghastly Gordon for having ruined pensions. The £6 billion pounds per annum - and rising (because over time dividends will rise)- that he stole can be capitalised as a £120 billion shortfall. This £6 billion per annum is lost for ever. If stock markets fall (which GB always blames) a) dividend yields go up, thus improving the return of money going into the pension funds and b)over time, and the life of the future pensioners, they will recover. Smarti
martin stevens
April 6th, 2008 7:15am Report this commentSleaze, Greed, Double speak, lies, cowardice, dupicious. Brown and all his other piggies will be out of office soon from local elections to the general election. I will never ever vote for any labour candidate again EVER. To misquote Orwell:- "Old Labour Good, New Labour Bad.
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