Darling gets Snowed under
Fraser Nelson 10:42pm
If you missed Jon Snow monstering Alistair Darling, watch here—absolutely brilliant: and totemic. When even Mr Snow isn't buying, then Darling has been truly rumbled. Darling's answers were all nonsense, but here are the top Snow questions.
1) Just eight weeks since your last budget, what has changed in the economy to warrant this extraordinary tax shift? Deteriorating economic conditions, says Darling2) "Suggests a cascade of events that is almost out of control" says Snow. Waffle in response.
3) "This is a political decision: it is about politics not economics. When I spoke to he PM three weeks ago, he couldn't engage with the idea that there was a problem with the 10p," says Snow. We can afford to do it this year, says Darling. [Eh? By going cap in hand to the City to borrow £2.7bn which is, of course, a delayed tax?]
4) "You have a PM who couldn’t engage with the 10p problem. You were going to lose the Finance Bill" Well, says Darling, faced with the fact that people inside and outside the Commons said we have it wrong "the obvious thing to do is respond to that." said Darling.
5) "Within a few days of becoming Chancellor you told the FT you will never take knee-jerk action on taxes. We will either do it in a Budget or pre-Budget Report." What happened?” Well, I wanted to legislate...
6) "You were going to lose the finance bill, that's your problem". Darling says he makes no apology for helping people. But apologies do come. "Of course I'm sorry that there are people in that position", says Darling. "They want candour, they want you then to sort it out and get on with it."
And here is the best from Snow. "All this does, in the end, sum up a complete shambles. You nearly lost the Finance Bill, the Prime Minister could not focus on the reality that the 10p was a problem. Then you have had to do what no Chancellor in our lifetime has ever had to do - change income tax arrangements between budgets. Why should people trust you after this, if things can go so badly wrong?"
A while ago, I took issue with Snow’s questioning. He has redeemed himself in full tonight. I'm off to do a Richard Bacon phone-in on today’s events on Five Live at 10.20pm—I'll report back on the mood.
UPDATE: It's hard to think which Prime Minister, other than Gordon Brown, could unveil a £2.7bn tax cut and still be attacked for it. But the Radio Five phone-in I just did had people up and down the country calling in to trash HIM. Jim in Leicester (a Labour voter) said it smacked of desperation - that Brown could do a hundred things and it wouldn't matter now. He's lost it. Tony said "I used to vote Labour but I'm all right now" and that the "boffins in the Treasury don't know what they are doing". There were a few of anti-Tory calls, claims that they'd keep people on £1.50/hour minimum wage, etc. But, all told, bad news for Brown and Darling.
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Comments
Daniel
May 13th, 2008 11:07pmFraser, can you tell us if this is a temporary measure for a year or a long term increase? That really seems the key thing to me.
Praguetory
May 13th, 2008 11:27pmMy favourite bit is near the end where Darling said
"The alternative which was to do absolutely nothing would be ridiculous."
I take this to mean that Gordon's last budget was ridiculous. I concur.
Austin Barry
May 13th, 2008 11:32pmBut wasn't Frank Field's grovelling show-trial apology pathetic? With what kind of Orwellian Room 101 did they threaten him. The clocks are striking thirteen all over Westminster tonight.
Silent Hunter
May 13th, 2008 11:36pmAbsolutely brilliant!
Jon Snow nailed Darlings(& Broons) fiscal mismanagement and showed him up for the charlatan he is.
Well done that man! :O)
Fraser Nelson
May 14th, 2008 12:11amDaniel, one year only. Darling (or whoever is Chancellor) will have yet another go at it in the pre-Budget report for the 2009-10 tax year.
Frank Pulley
May 14th, 2008 12:54amShooting fish in a barrel... big deal! Snow is a reptilian leftie and there must be a sub-agenda here. Yet another gift-horse that should have its mouth examined.
RW
May 14th, 2008 8:09amIs it just my maths (never my strong point), or:
since the basic allowance has been raised for everyone by £600, saving people £120 in tax, while the 40 percent tax band has been lowered by £600, on which the tax liability is £240, aren't higher rate taxpayers worse off than they were before? In spite of claims they won't lose?
Phew, I'm glad I'm not the Chancellor. All these complicated sums he has to do.
occasional ranter
May 14th, 2008 8:13amDarling got similar treatment at the hands of Paxman on Newsnight. Paxman said essentially "How can we ever believe anything you say to us ever again ?" echoing what Gordon said to Tony of course.
Darling looked like he wanted to cry, and to tell us - between great sobs - of the impossible conditions he was working under..... scooping up Gordon's messes while watching out for the knife in the back from Ed or Yvette....
Trumpeter Lanfried
May 14th, 2008 8:47amI haven't seen it yet, but it seems Paxman also took him apart.
Fergus Pickering
May 14th, 2008 8:57amTell me, Fraser, can you imagne the Chancellor, whoever he is, actually REDUCING the personal allowance next year, never mind what else he does? They can't do it, can they? But then they'd announce a tax on widows and orphans if it got them out of this week's hole.
Ted Tedford
May 14th, 2008 9:52amI watched the Newsnight interview, and it was a bit spluttery. But why does it fall to Paxman and Snow to put these questions to the Chancellor? Why isn't it happening in Parliament?
Well, it's obvious why it isn't, but why aren't more people - including the well-paid hacks - more worried about this?
Also, it was another case of 'Where's Gordon?' This mess has his dabs all over it - just like the drive-by on Frank Field - so why wasn't he in front of the cameras?
And when Mr Field made his apology, Brown's grin was a gruesome sight. He looked like Robert de Niro's Al Capone in The untouchables, when he's told at the opera about a successful hit.
Travis Bickle
May 14th, 2008 10:06amFergus
Anything is possible with this lot, they're clearly making it up as they go along.
Amusingly the Labour back benchers were praising this act as if it were solving a mess that the Tories had made, no doubt given Brown's propensity for mistruth it won't be long before they find a soundbite that tries to make this fact.
And the other clip I heard was when Letwin nailed Darling on the possible breach of election law, and the old chestnut for justifying war and anything else came back "it was the right thing to do". What a shambles.
cityboozer
May 14th, 2008 10:34amRW, the difference is only 120K as higher-rate payers were already paying 20% on that 600.
Ian C
May 14th, 2008 10:35amHave another look at the politicalbetting.com site. The price has returned to where it was yesterday!!!
It is all gobsmackingly, appallingly, utterly, amazingly, superbly incompetent - what you would (eventually) expect from a socialist government. Like him or loathe him, if Blair had not lost control over Iraq, and thus his hold on No 10., this would not have happened. Brown thought he was so clever last year when he announced it in that flurry at the end of the Budget speech. Darling was sucker enough to take the job that Brown had poisoned for his successor(s) for the next 5 years.
John
May 14th, 2008 10:56amCouldn't happen to a nicer crook.
RW: you are being fed lies, plain and simple. For example, the BBC's statement on the news page today, viz. "On Tuesday, Alistair Darling put up the personal tax allowance by £600 - meaning anyone earning up to £40,835 will gain £120 this year" is a lie. A very large number of people on low income will NOT, repeat NOT, 'gain £120 this year' - they will actually lose £80.
Frank Pulley
May 14th, 2008 11:02amIt is dangerous to get too excited about two NuLab pr men like Snow and Paxman feeding off the rotting red herring left by Brown. What is occurring in the backrooms while this distraction is in progress? And Ted is right to ask where are the opposition in the POW at this vulnerable time for the government? Still recovering from the celebrations of the hollow victories of Boris stealing a white elephant from the newt keeper and a few what may turn out to be temporary gains in the Town Halls. At a time when the Tory big beasts should be roaring, we hear the muted mewling of kittens. There should be blood all over the floor of the Westminster zoo and the Speccy is reduced to praising the enemy's media agents because they have turned on the runt of Brown's litter? Where is Ken Clarke for instance - this is his bailiwick? Pissed in Ronnie Scotts, perhaps?