Time travel came to PMQs today. The leaders discussed what year it will be in 2020. The answer, naturally, isn’t 2020. Ed Miliband quoted the OBR and claimed that the Coalition plans to shrink the state to the sort of slim-line figure it last sported in the 1930s. Rubbish, said Cameron. His diet will trim the national waistline to the dimensions it enjoyed in the late 1990s. Kenneth Clarke wittily chipped in to remind us that Blair’s government only hit this modest target by adopting the budget limits of the previous Tory administration. In which the chancellor was K Clarke.
That was funny. Not much else was. Miliband’s gnashers are currently locked around his favourite soundbite: the ‘1930s vision’ of the Tory party. His grudge experts and blame connoisseurs evidently like the atmosphere this conjures up. And the class-war visuals – with top hats set against cloth caps – will be useful too. Any day now we can expect a black-and-white newsreel spoof to promote Miliband’s newest obsession.
Cameron rejected the 1930s analysis which he traced to a ‘throwaway’ remark by a reporter on an early morning news show. He meant nice Mr Norman Smith, a political wombat employed by the BBC, who wears the exquisitely strained expression of privilege haunted by guilt.
Miliband and Balls over-reacted to this. Balls flung out his arms in outrage while Miliband hopped and squirmed like a Frankie Howerd impersonator. Neutrals began to wonder if these hysterical denials might conceal some secret Beeb-Lab pact. Surely not.
Wild accusations were thrown about by back benchers. Liz McInnes asked a closed question which triggered a row of dizzying absurdity about the lagging of pensioners’ lofts. Liz McInnes appears to accept the following chain of responsibilities.
Every OAP’s home must be fully insulated. Every radiator must blaze all winter at maximum strength. Every pensioner’s death is therefore preventable. And every failed prevention must be the fault of a minister.
In short, the state guarantees its citizens immortality. Even the oldest, even those well over a hundred, are assured that death is a hassle they’ll be spared.
Rather than challenge or mock this fantasy Cameron endorsed it. ‘Every excess winter death is a tragedy,’ he schmoozed. And he tendered a glib apology for the 18,200 freezings-to-death his government has overseen in the last year. (He had the exact tally ready to hand). But his contrition was a cunning feint intended to harm his accusers. In 2008, he said, a grand total of 36,000 nippy oldsters were permanently put on ice by the state. And which energy secretary was behind that record-breaking cull? Ed Miliband.
Then came more in the same vein. Malcolm Bruce, whose seat is coveted by Alex Salmond, accused the SNP of killing Scottish voters. Or at least of jeopardising their health.
Here’s the logic. The Coalition has bribed the UK’s Celtic satellites with a few hundred million quid to shore up the NHS. But the Celts have blown the dosh on other projects, possibly to burnish their semi-permanent negligence claim against Westminster. Result: Bruce believes Salmond deliberately starved hospitals of cash. And he wants the public to find Salmond guilty of corporate manslaughter. Cameron offered qualified support for this line of attack.
Strange days in the House. Three senior politicians were accused of mass murder in the space of half an hour. And no one gave a monkeys.
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