Brown survives PMQs
Fraser Nelson 3:08pm
I had thought it impossible to pay tribute to our servicemen in a more garbled way than Brown did last week. But Khalid Mahmood proved me wrong. He stuttered, gasped, looked at his papers. How difficult can it be to ask one question? When he sat down, I thought he'd be mortified. But he smiled broadly, and a mischievous thought struck me. Was his job to sound so breathtakingly incoherent that Gordon Brown sounds fluent?
Perhaps his trick worked, because Brown came across better than we're used to. And Cameron was not quite as good as normal, going on strikes. Brown asks what the Tory position is on reopening pay deals (left in confusion after one of Hammond's gaffes). Call an election if you want to ask questions, Cameron replied. He'd best be careful, its a good line and loses its impact if deployed too many times.
Brown had obviously been practising his sixth, final answer in the mirror, and denounced Cameron as a PR man. The Tories howled with laughter - the attack looked very weak. Brown then said he is decisive on issues the Tories duck, like nuclear power, and on issues like "3 million new houses". That will be the same 3m home target that housebuilders across Britain have derided as a laughable joke now the market is crashing. But Brown doesn't make policies for practical effect, he makes them for lines to use in PMQs.
"You can get by without substance some of the time, you can't get by without substance all of the time" was his payoff. As he should know.
Brian Donohue asked a planted question about what Brown would do about the Evil American Speculators jacking up petrol prices. A ha! This is the latest bogey man. Nothing to do with the collapse in sterling, then.
What Brown can do, of course, is lower the tax which accounts for 66p to the 110p a litre pump. And all the meetings in the world with what he calls the "King of Soddy Arabia" won't change a simple truth. The petrol prices are high over here because UK tax makes it high.
Clegg sported a pink tie, and tried a "more in sorrow than in anger" tone about the Gurkhas. Brown floundered, going on about those who quit after 1997. Perhaps deliberately, this mistook the point. The people complaining are in their 70s.
Yet another planted question from Tony Lloyd on child poverty - can Brown pledge to abolish it, because no other party will? Shamelessly, Brown spoke as if poverty (even by his weird definition) is going down rather than up. Some 600,000 kids are out of "poverty", Hrown said. Funny, because he said it was one million a couple of months ago.
Previous
Faceless Bureaucrat
June 25th, 2008 4:11pm Report this commentOn a purely personally basis, I think DC was wrong to use up so many Qs to focus on Zimbabwe. Serious though that situation is, there are far too many domestic issues that need airing and probing at PMQs to be able to afford the luxury of committing so much time to the Mugabe scenario. He could have hammered the PM on the Fuel Tax issue, the forthcoming Planning Bill (which will be another tight vote for the Government), not to mention something about today's announcement by The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, James Purnell, who in announcing that all and any service provided by DWP could now be open for private sector companies to run said "This is us saying very clearly the only limit is the quality of service and imagination of the provider," - thereby announcing a virtual 'car boot sale' of services currently provided by the State. The Electorate are both aware of and sympathetic to World events, but they are also aware of how domestic policy is eroding both their civil liberties and their standard of living. Focus, Dave, focus...
Annoyed
June 25th, 2008 4:26pm Report this commentI'm not going to bother reading you're review of PMQ's anymore. Every single week you say 'Brown survives' or 'Brown's best week yet' or 'Brown was better this week'. Maybe Brown should formally employ you to spin for him as you're doing the job already.
Anonymous
June 25th, 2008 5:02pm Report this commentWeek after week we get the same sanctimonious handwringing over the deaths of soldiers. Yet Blair & Hoon were both warned before sending them to war of the shortcomings in equipment. Who has been responsible since for ensuring that there were insufficient funds to replace anf improve their equipment?
crown
June 25th, 2008 6:38pm Report this commentI was stunned at how bad Khalid Mahmood was, but it makes sense now. It's a classic trick - get some absolute muppet to start things off and then the ground is prepared. Genius
Hysteria
June 25th, 2008 7:46pm Report this comment"The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, James Purnell, who in announcing that all and any service provided by DWP could now be open for private sector companies to run said "This is us saying very clearly the only limit is the quality of service and imagination of the provider,"
but isn't this what we want - this forum generally supports "Big State Bad, Small State Good" - so what am I missing here? - isn't having these services provided by the private sector a good thing (in principle at least)
Not sure we can have it both ways
hrp887
June 25th, 2008 8:07pm Report this commentBottler Brown had to read a repy to Nick Clegg on the gurkha`s then two seconds later read the same reply again could`nt he ad lib from the first reading What a burk
Martin
June 25th, 2008 8:38pm Report this commentDid you notice the big ''Brownie'' Oil demand is outstripping supply...Where is the evidence Gordon? We are the 12th largest oil producing country in the world yet we have have the highest petrol prices in the EU...The reason? Tax...Not supply, not demand,Tax. Now that Joe Public finally realises that petrol is a Nu Lab con lets look at gas...We export during the summer (because we only have the infrastructure to store 18 days supply..In France it is 122 days)and import during the winter at highly inflated prices...That is some way to run a nation eh?
David C
June 26th, 2008 9:41am Report this comment122 days of gas stored. That must insulate France against the worst effects of winter price rises.
If there was one thing I would have expected a Labour government to do, it was to invest in state-owned infrastructure.
Brown flunked even that test.
Faceless Bureaucrat
June 26th, 2008 9:41am Report this commentHysteria [7.46pm]
In some cases yes, but in the case of DWP, there will ultimately be a need to transfer personal details to the new service provder in order for them to know where and to whom to direct the service they are engaged to supply. The Government has a lamentable record in the area of data protection - imagine the possibilites for fraudulent access to personal data once they are handed over. All I am suggesting is outsource where practical, but there should be some areas where provision should continue to be by the State.
Victor, NW Kent
June 26th, 2008 11:51am Report this commentCapita and the like must be clapping their trotters.
Mark
June 26th, 2008 12:25pm Report this comment"How difficult can it be to ask one question?"
With several hundred people sat just a few feet away ready to shout and jeer if they don't like what you say or how you say it? Pretty hard to say a question clearly and fluently I'd say in such circumstances.
Good for you if the thought of several hundred people shouting you down would never give you the slightest flutter, though I wonder what experience you've got in making your assumption that it must be easy?
Back to top