David Cameron devoted all six questions to a simple theme: Gordon Brown lied to the House of Commons last week when he said capital expenditure was rising every year to the Olympics. As we pointed out on Coffee House at the time, the figures are falling (see the graph above).
Brown’s strategy is to think no one will try to bog him down in detail so he freely can give out his Brownies – which include, but are not restricted to, outright lies. Brown was, of course, pathologically unable to admit he got anything wrong. (Even now, in private, he won’t admit that the gold sale was a mistake – something is just wired up wrongly inside his head.) Cameron kept at it, as he tried to develop the argument from “10% Tory cuts” into “Brown lies”. He read out that Sunday Times splash about how even Darling has told him the 10% figure is misleading. Brown very rattled, slapped his papers on the table at one point, and said that more investment is being made now than when Cameron was “in charge” (sic). All in all, an impressive performance from Cameron: we’re always asking him to be more forensic in CoffeeHouse and he did so today. It’s a rich vein: Brown cannot ever bring himself to acknowledge when he made a mistake. Even a mistake as basic as that illustrated by the above graph.
Onto the Speaker, “The public don’t like it and neither do I” said Bercow about the level of noise in the Chamber. Michael Fabricant was told to shut up because “it’s not good for your health.” He’s evidently trying to make his name with Terry Wogan quips. This bodes very ill for as long as his Speakership lasts. I say in my Spectator pol col tomorrow there is now talk of having an Independent Conservative stand against him in Buckingham at the next election, so we may not have to endure him for very long
Comments