PMQs today must have been a political version of that optical illusion where one person sees a young woman and the other an old woman. Fraser saw a pretty unimpressive David Cameron, whereas I thought it one of his very best performances. And, if CoffeeHousers will indulge me, here’s why…
My verdict sprang from what I saw as the main Tory goal today: to stop Brown’s “Borrowing is good” narrative taking root in the public consciousness. This is beyond crucial. After all, if Brown can successfully make that case then he’ll have largely won the economic argument for the next two years – during which borrowing will rise out of both necessity, during a recession, and our PM’s wider addiction to debt. I’d say, then, that Cameron did the right thing by mostly laying into the government’s plan to make the fiscal rules more “flexible”, to allow for more borrowing. Some of his lines were bluntly effective (cf “The PM has been caught irreponsibly spinning about irresponsible spending”) and – should they get airtime in the media – will undermine Brown’s new defining irony: that prudence is somehow imprudent.
Sure, this meant PMQs was especially adversarial and unnuanced today, and that the Tories didn’t outline their alternative policy response to the downturn. They will certainly have to – and sooner rather than later. Indeed, as I’ve written before, it’s astonishing that they don’t seem to have one already. But today was different, for two reasons: 1) PMQs is theatre, and very rarely the venue for fleshing out policy visions, and 2) Allowing Brown’s “responsible borrowing vs. irresponsible spending” narrative to take hold could seriously constrain Tory policy in advance, just as the “Labour investment vs Tory cuts” line constrained any proper debate about tax and spend.
The points Cameron made today are ones to which he will have to keep returning. But, for the time being, he’s struck a first blow. The challenge now is to detail an alternative policy approach. Hop to it, Mr Cameron.
P.S. We’ve put up footage of the party leader exchanges, so you can make your own mind up. Watch it here.
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