Many CoffeeHousers have asked why Cameron doesn’t lampoon Brown for using his trademark dodgy figures as per our Brownie series. Well today he did – not on economics but on vehicle excise duty. Brown said 24 of the 30 most popular car models won’t be affected. Then Cameron pounced. “once again, dodgy statistics from the PM” he said. “In any other walk of life” he said “the trading standards officer would have him clamped in irons”. Brown counts the Ford Focus as one model, disregarding the 40 variations such as saloon, estate etc.
This may sound strange coming from me, but I’m not sure the stat picking worked. When you start arguing about statistics, you lose audience rapidly. The internet is a natural environment for pulling apart little lies, but PMQs doesn’t lend itself very well for that. I’d like Cameron to wait for a simple whopper, ie Brown claiming inflation is not higher than when he enterd office, that he lifted a million children out of poverty when he is actually rounding up the figure of 600,000. Then Cameron should say: I imagine it was inadvertant, but the Prime Minister just misled the house and I would like to give him the chance to correct himself” and then have Brown admit to his shamless ruses.
Cameron is at his best when ad libbing. When Brown brought up that infamous tale of Cameron’s chauffeur behind him, Cameron said “it’s not my backbenchers who are telling me to get on my bike.” He had other good lines: “What is green about taxing someone who bought a Ford Mondeo seven years ago?” and saying Brown (who doesn’t drive) “thinks you fill a car with a barrel of oil”. From my perch in the press gallery, Cameron seemed to have a new tousled hair do.
Brown has a new formula he uses when backbenchers raise a question about his leadership failures: “he has a chance to ask anything on behalf of his constituents and he resorts to that”. I suspect many MPs’ constituents are talking about Brown’s cold calling, or whether they are likely to have a second unelected prime minister before the next election.
Interesting that Brown had Jacqui Smith sitting to his right, one of the few ministers with a star in the ascendent.
Brown said the Labour government has “more people in work than ever before”. This is untrue: Brown has never matched the employment rate achieved in the Lawson boom. He also taunted Tories with negative equity. He is playing with fire, as this curse is back.
The highlight of this rather dull PMQs was a blond bolt from the blue: BoJo asking Brown to congratulate transport police in implementing the booze ban. Boris said these were his “final few seconds” in Westminster. That is asking us to believe that his ambitions stretch no further than City Hall, which I don’t buy. I would be prepared to bet a fiver that, sooner or later, Boris will be back.
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