Miracle at SW1
Lloyd Evans 3:19pm
He did it. We saw him. It actually happened. History was made at PMQs today as Gordon Brown finally gave a direct answer to a direct question. Not only that, he admitted he'd been wrong about something. Tony Baldry (Con, Banbury) informed the PM that his assertion before the Chilcot Inquiry that defence spending has risen, in real terms, every year has been contradicted by figures released to the Commons library. Up got Brown, looking like a wounded old teddy-bear, and offered this epoch-making concession. 'I accept that in one or two years real terms spending did not rise.'
What a union of opposites. Brown and the truth. It was alarming, almost unnatural, to witness. Like Santa in a scuba suit or the Pope playing pinball. When Cameron got up he knew he was on to a good thing. He asked Brown to urge BA's employees to cross the picket line during the upcoming industrial action. Brown attempted the 'lofty statesman' ploy and accused Cameron of wanting to prolong the strike not to resolve it. He then pulled out an antique newspaper article about the Tory leader's readiness to chat with the unions.
Brown's hope here was to embarrass Cameron by smothering him in a wave of ironic jeers from the Labour benches. But the Tory leader swatted him away with one of his deft improvisations. 'It's one thing to talk to the unions, another to give in to them.' And when the Speaker asked Labour members to shout more quietly Cameron took another pop at the unions. 'Most of them are paid to shout. That's the point.'
Nick Clegg offered us a taste of how a coalition might work in practice. Instead of asking the PM a question he made a speech painting himself as the heroic pioneer of parliamentary reform and accusing the other parties of messing up his plans. Brown replied by copying Clegg. He claimed that he and Clegg had agreed on the perfect model for reform only to see it vandalised at the last minute by the Tories. Clegg disagreed. 'He's re-writing history.' He repeated his version of events, insisting that he was the saint everyone else was the saboteur. If Cameron had had a question remaining he might have done the same. This may be what a hung parliament will mean: instead of two power-mad windbags claiming the moral high ground we'll get three.
The best of the backbench questions came from Gerald Howarth who wanted to know why Charlie Whelan - who was implicated in the smeargate emails - still had access to Number 10. 'Has the prime minister's' moral compass suffered the same fate as the mobile phones that got beaten up in the bunker?'
Brown flannelled some vague and ineffective reply to that. He was completely off his game today. Even the tactic he loves, (and which all commentators hate), had deserted him. Faced with a tricky question he likes to shift the subject to a dividing-line issue and then hose everyone into semi-consiousness with a list of statistics that prove his virtue and the opposition's worthlessness. That was beyond him. His closing dig at Cameron - 'he talks without notes because he has nothing to say' - merely draws attention to one of Cameron's strengths rather than exposing a weakness. And he kept fluffing his lines. He spoke about the strike as if BA were a natural disaster. 'My thoughts are with the customers and those who depend for their jobs on the airline.' He even misnamed his favourite tax-break and called the winter fuel allowance 'the winter pensioner allowance' three times. A shadow of fatigue and failure loured over him.
By contrast Cameron was relaxed, incisive and self-confident. The BA issue helped him to an easy victory. The strike is throttling Labour's plan to fight a necromancer's election and to set the debate entirely in the past. The Tory ghosts of sleaze, unemployment and high interest rates aren't nearly as scary as the spectre of industrial inaction under Labour. While BA is grounded, the Tories can achieve lift-off. Cameron's only gaffe today was his failure to pretend that he wants the dispute resolved.
Previous
the shade of dr kelly
March 17th, 2010 3:29pm Report this commentblimey - the same being that posessed brown today to make him tell the truth (okay, well nearly) must also have entered lloyd.
i was truly expecting to read that brown thrashed cameron around the chamber etc....
stephen
March 17th, 2010 3:30pm Report this commentGood on yer Dave! Perhaps you got a bit of flavour on how Brown and his Fellow Traveller Clegg may gang up on you in the TV debates. Lord Mandy has already admitted in the local press in the South West that he needs all the help he can get from fellow travelling Lib Dems to prevent a Labour bloodbath in the Westcountry!
paulg
March 17th, 2010 3:36pm Report this commentI have just watched PMQ, Mr Brown is starting to crumble, his self assurance is going as he realises that he is underthreat from his own side. Cameron started to take command of the house.
Madame Arcati
March 17th, 2010 4:20pm Report this commentNo need to attend PMQs when you can fantasise.
Curbishly
March 17th, 2010 4:30pm Report this comment"Tired old Teddy bear". Mendacious hypocrite more like.
Andy Carpark
March 17th, 2010 4:35pm Report this comment'It was alarming, almost unnatural, to witness. Like Santa in a scuba suit or the Pope playing pinball.'
Or indeed like Lloyd Evans deviating from slavish approbation.
TrevorsDen
March 17th, 2010 4:41pm Report this commentWill Brown invent a trip to Lichtenstein to dump the Harridan in it next week - or will he call another recess?
Colin
March 17th, 2010 4:48pm Report this commentIt's all about PERSONAL INTEGRITY and brown is vulnerable. he just can't help lying...
Alex
March 17th, 2010 5:01pm Report this commentI had always been told that the Spectator was a publication of high intellectual content, so I hope this blog doesn't make it into print, or it could ruin your reputation.
Honestly. A Tory would say that Dave was great and Brown was rubbish. A Labour supporter the exact opposite.
Are we entitled to look to our more prestigious publications for a more elevated, informed and nuanced view? Well we don't get it here.
For what it's worth, I thought Cameron's attacks on the Trades Unions was a mistake. Most people see faults on both sides and, even if they oppose the strike, they can see that the workers are defending their working conditions against a hostile employer. IMO most people do not support or oppose the strike: they just want a solution.
The Conservative position gives the impression that they don't like the workers, that Trades Unions are some sort of criminal organisation, and that the Company's position does not require any scrutiny.
And Cameron's tactic shows that he is not interested in a solution, just a ruckus that keeps Ashcroft out of the news and sends a signal to Tory activists and nobody else.
The Laughing Cavalier
March 17th, 2010 5:24pm Report this commentPerhaps his employer, Mr Whelan, told him to be honest as an experiment to see what the electorate would think of such an unusual tactic.
2trueblue
March 17th, 2010 5:44pm Report this commentIt has taken 13yrs of wrecking our economy, and now he admits to one mistake.
denverthen
March 17th, 2010 6:00pm Report this commentSo you think David Cameron is a 'power mad windbag' do you, young Lloyd (or is it Loyd? I can't remember and, apparently, neither can you).
Your throwaway quips do you no favours. As in this case, their scattergun nature means you miss whatever or whoever it is you're trying to target, and lead me to believe that your overall judgment, whether in favour of the Cameron's performance (as in this case, sort of) or (as it is usually) otherwise, is worth about as much as the quips themselves. It all amounts to much pseudo-analytical garbage and supercilious verbiage.
Must do better.
Thomas Cussans
March 17th, 2010 6:05pm Report this commentWhat was striking at PMQs was just how much on the defensive McNutter was. Where was the smirking, swaggering, tribal, boasting Brown of even three weeks ago?
He fell back, wholly unconvincingly, on the tiredest of arguments delivered in the tiredest of fashions: leaden, clumsy, wooden.
And we now know that even his apology over defence spending was a further lie, 'one or two years' actually being five.
He last looked played-out like this, dopey, deluded and incoherent, fully a year ago.
Have we now seen his last, desperate attempt to reassert himself?
I strongly suspect so. I sincerely hope so. The elaborate conceit McLooney has built his life around - that he is wise, commanding and invincible, a vast brain driven by a vast desire to right social wrongs – is surely, painfully and pitilessly being revealed for the grotesque sham it is: that of a properly nasty, properly vicious, properly stupid man desperate (for reasons too horrible to contemplate) to impose himself on us all.
I look forward to his ultimate, imminent humiliation with relish.
ajs
March 17th, 2010 6:10pm Report this commentWell said, Denverthen. Better these stupid vapid overpaid commentators shut up, or even better, go and queue for a real job.
Boudicca
March 17th, 2010 6:28pm Report this commentA wounded old teddy bear!!! Come off it, he looked like the same old jowly, disheveled liar he always looks like. And even then he didn't tell the truth. He said real spending hadn't increased for one or two years. It was three years.
He is an habitual liar. Even when found out, he continues to lie.
Athesius the Facilitator
March 17th, 2010 7:35pm Report this commentErrr! Can someone out there tell me where Richard is. He seems to have gone of the boil.
Verity are you starting to like Dave just a 'tincey wincey' bit now.
tom Holland
March 17th, 2010 9:58pm Report this commentThis must have been a toughie for Evans to write. He usually has his nose well and truly wedged between Browns ass cheeks -
EyeSee
March 18th, 2010 8:31am Report this commentKnowing Brown, this admission must be a smokescreen. The truth must be much worse, but he hopes no-one will go digging further as he has 'fessed up'. What it does show quite clearly though is his contempt for Chilcot, the soldiers losing their lives and the British people in general. The man is mad.
Back to top