Another good day for Gordon Brown – not because anyone watching PMQs from the gallery would have been inspired (not even Lord Mandelson) but because he has so much to be guilty about and brushed a lot of it off. The highlight of this PMQs was about how the two party leaders use the recession as weapon, both testing the strength of their positions.
Cameron started by asking if Brown was wrong to predict an end to boom and bust. As Brown is programmed never to admit error, this question will always leave him looking evasive. He responded, rather oddly, by listing countries he claims are not copying the Tory policy. “No one except him is proposing to cut public spending at this time.” A lie, of course, the Tories propose to increase it. But I note that even Cameron didn’t correct him. Nor when he claimed there would be DWP cuts. This is how Brown gets away with lies: when the Tories give up correcting him and think – wrongly, in my view – that the public know it’s not true.
Cameron then went on the VAT promise and asked if the “the centrepiece of the government proposal to fight the recession is an expensive failure.” Strikingly, Brown backfired from VAT listing other tiny aspects to his so-called stimulus – pension, child benefit, raising tax allowances. All tiny, compared to the £12.4bn VAT cut – ten times bigger than anything else he mentioned. Cameron’s right. It’s a complete flop.
But Brown had a cigar-chomping trump card. Ken Clarke called for a cut in VAT to 15% – which he did, in The Times, before backtracking. I hope this reminded Cameron of the dangers of taking Clarke back in the front bench: he has said what he pleased since 1994 and won’t stop now. Shooting his mouth off like that in the Shadow Cabinet would give Brown real cause to talk about a Shadow Cabinet split. As things stood, he said – rightly – that “the Tory party is not exactly united on this”.
Then for Brown’s VAT defence. “He may think VAT is unimportant. But at the end of every week, the typical family has more than £5 extra in their pocket. It may not matter to the people on the opposite bench that £5 extra is in their pocket. That’s £275 a year as a result of the cut in VAT. That is more money for everyone in the community, not just for the few who they support.”
Cameron should have pointed out that each family is £125 a week worse off due to his tax rises, and he expects thanks for a £5 rebate? Here, in my view, lies Cameron’s opportunity. When Brown talks numbers and jargon, he can talk from the perspective of ordinary families – and sound angry, genuinely angry, on how Brown’s policies are bankrupting them. Brown only ever sees Britain through a spreadsheet, where I suspect his 2.5% VAT cut looked far more impressive.
Brown tried one of his Biblical references – the Good Samaritan. “We won’t walk by on the other side – they would, we would not.” It’s reminiscent of American politics. Churchgoing politicians in Britain tend not to do this, regarding the Bible as being above the political fray.
Enter Nick Clegg. You can now hear Vince Cable’s voice when he speaks about economics. And Cable is on a loser here, claiming Britain’s near-bankrupt banks are somehow hoarding money. Brown can’t admit this, though. He claimed he is monitoring the Scottish banks to ensure they lend as much as they did last year – which, if he meant it, would be calamitous.
Brown got his “real help now” key message across, saying it seven times. While it irritates us lot, it does get through to normal people who only ever see politics through peripheral vision.
My gut feeling is that Brown’s luck is now turning for the worse, the bleak economic data is reaching a critical mass and his “jam tomorrow” claims will soon be disproven. But he’s still putting up a reasonable fight. Plenty of scope for the Tories to land far harder punches.
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