Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown survives PMQs

I had thought it impossible to pay tribute to our servicemen in a more garbled way than Brown did last week. But Khalid Mahmood proved me wrong. He stuttered, gasped, looked at his papers. How difficult can it be to ask one question? When he sat down, I thought he’d be mortified. But he smiled broadly, and a mischievous thought struck me. Was his job to sound so breathtakingly incoherent that Gordon Brown sounds fluent?

Perhaps his trick worked, because Brown came across better than we’re used to. And Cameron was not quite as good as normal, going on strikes. Brown asks what the Tory position is on reopening pay deals (left in confusion after one of Hammond’s gaffes). Call an election if you want to ask questions, Cameron replied. He’d best be careful, its a good line and loses its impact if deployed too many times.

Brown had obviously been practising his sixth, final answer in the mirror, and denounced Cameron as a PR man. The Tories howled with laughter – the attack looked very weak. Brown then said he is decisive on issues the Tories duck, like nuclear power, and on issues like “3 million new houses”. That will be the same 3m home target that housebuilders across Britain have derided as a laughable joke now the market is crashing. But Brown doesn’t make policies for practical effect, he makes them for lines to use in PMQs.

“You can get by without substance some of the time, you can’t get by without substance all of the time” was his payoff.  As he should know. 

Brian Donohue asked a planted question about what Brown would do about the Evil American Speculators jacking up petrol prices.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in