And so back to the relative drudgery of Westminster politics with Coffee House’s live blog of PMQs. Not that Obama’s election victory won’t feature in the to-and-fro between our party leaders – as Ben Brogan reveals, Brown’s going to use the opportunity to continue casting Obama as a “fellow progressive” rather than one of those pesky novices. And what else? Well, I wouldn’t be too surprised if our PM makes a lot out of his Saving the World dash around the Middle East – whilst Cameron’s goal will be to undermine that narrative. All will be revealed from 1200 onwards.
1204: Brown starts with condolences for fallen British troops, and congratulations for Barack Obama. “The Government looks forward to working with the new administration”. Also refers to the “dignity” of John McCain.
1206: Question from John Leech on congestion charge referendum in Manchester. Brown: “In the event of a ‘No’ vote, it would be the job of local authorities in Manchester to work out a revised proposition.”
1208: Kate Hoey on Zimbabawe.
1209: Here’s Cameron. Pushes Obama as a change candidate. A gag: “I read that the PM sent the President elect a message this morning. I hope it wasn’t this is ‘no time for a novice'” Brown responds, rather limply: “What I said was that ‘this is a serious time, for serious people.'” This is all a bit flat, despite the jeers from either side.
1210: Cameron gets in an effective dig about the appointment of Peter Mandelson “burying change”.
1211: Cameron on the European Commission’s claim that Britain will experience a worse recession that many other developed economy. Good line of attack – undermines Brown’s “we’re better prepared…” claim.
1213: Cameron’s pushing the European Commission attack. Good. Brown wheels out the tractor production statistics, so Cameron moves onto debt: “You cannot build the New Jerusalem on a mountain of debt”.
1216: Cameron asks Brown whether there’ll be an enquiry into regulatory failure – as Paul Myners suggested. Brown denies that Myners ever said that. Cameron supples the Myners quote which proves he did.
1217: Cameron: “The public are asking how much longer must we put up with more of the same failure.” Brown drags it back to Obama, although he does deploy the word “change”. The PM’s response: “The reason the American people voted for change is because they wanted progressive politics.” Not sure how much this will work for Brown – cf. the Guardian’s leader from a couple of months ago, in which they claimed that Tory policy can now be regarded as “progressive”.
1219: Clegg now. Congratulates Obama, and launches into his (worthwhile) “tax cuts for low-income earners” message. It is the policy of Obama, he says, why not the policy of this Labour government? Brown redeploys the old “Tory cuts” line, only he replaces the word “Tory” with “Lib Dem”
1222: Brown hopes to meet with Obama soon.
1225: In response to a backbench question on troop numbers in Iraq, Brown says that there will be a “change” (there’s that word again) in our troops’ role next year. John Hutton hinted earlier this week that there’d be an announcement on this soon.
1227: Important question from Gerald Howarth on the troop deaths due to the use of Snatch Land Rovers. Can the PM confirm that the these military didn’t have a choice other than to use these vehicles? Brown trots out statistics on the upgrade of military equipment that was annoucned recently.
1230: Dennis Skinner asks about the global economic situation. Allows Brown to refer to his trip to the Middle East.
1233: Brown goes on the attack about the NHS: “The Conservatives are clearly not interested in the future of the NHS. We created it, and we are.”
1234: That’s it.
VERDICT: Much of this PMQs was a rhetorical battle to cast Obama as either an agent of (as Brown would have it) “progressive, centre-left policies” or as an agent of “change”. Whilst he didn’t score a deadly blow, Cameron got the better of these exchanges – and rightly centred his attack around the European Commission’s recession finding. Clegg pushed on with his effective tax cut message. A shame that he’s getting the same “investment vs cuts” treatment that the Tories have had from Brown for the past decade.
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