I listened to PMQs in my car. Even without seeing the pictures it was clear that Cameron pulverised Brown. Like many Labour MPs I suspect, I thought to myself, how would Blair have reacted? And I think the answer is this. He would have looked at Cameron with a slight air of disdain and tried to swat him away as if he were an angry schoolboy daring to question the Master. He would have deployed humour and 
wit, but he wouldn't have allowed himself to become riled in the way that Brown did. It was the reading from his COURAGE book which made Brown lose it. It may not have come across on TV but on the radio it sounded as if Brown had had a Shirley Temple moment, in that he was speaking so quickly he couldn't get all his words out properly. I could almost imagine him shouting: "I'll squeam and I'll squeam till the Right Honourable Gentleman acknowledges that I am a man of courage!"
wit, but he wouldn't have allowed himself to become riled in the way that Brown did. It was the reading from his COURAGE book which made Brown lose it. It may not have come across on TV but on the radio it sounded as if Brown had had a Shirley Temple moment, in that he was speaking so quickly he couldn't get all his words out properly. I could almost imagine him shouting: "I'll squeam and I'll squeam till the Right Honourable Gentleman acknowledges that I am a man of courage!"But far more interesting than the actual exchange was the media reaction to it. Don't get me wrong, Cameron did brilliantly, but did he really do as brilliantly as the pundits reported? 'Pulverised' was a word being used by many. I suspect the media relished their chance to kick Brown when he was down, after two weeks of being spun to in the most duplicitous way. Cameron was right when he said that Brown was taking the electorate for fools. But it was the media who felt they were being taken for fools too. And they, at least, had the chance to hit back.
UPDATE: So it wasn't Shirley Temple then... I like to think it could have been...
38 comments:
Great post Iain. You were missed yesterday. Hope the beanfeast in Norwich was good.
"I'll thcream..... etc"
I think that was Violet Elizabeth Bott of Just William fame.
It was heartening to see the papers reflect PMQ accurately. It was an absolutely devastating attack. Brown's face as he sat chewing gum, or snot, was a picture and ought to feature in any future campaign poster. Strong man he aint!
Things are now going to be quiet for a while as the immediacy of the election that wasn't debacle dies away. I hope that the tories have a decent plan to keep up the pressure.
Er, are you getting Shirley Temple confused with Elizabeth May Bott in the "Just William" stories?
Yesterday was quite a day: Jack Straw grinning as Cameron stuck the knife in, Alan Johnson voicing criticisms of Brown later - and the reaction of the press after all the flak they have been giving Cameron. Like you I thought Cameron did well - but not THAT well. That Andrew Marr exclusive has really peed them off.
I agree that the media over-reacted a little, but I'm not exactly going to complain about that after the catalogue of media unfairness that the Tories have suffered over the years.
Watching TV was far more instructive than just listening to the radio, for once. GB's face changed colour several times, from ghostly white to apoplectic. One could write a book (OK, a boring one) about the dejection on the faces of his colleagues who would echo 'pulverised', I suspect, and noticeably did not leap to his defence. The silence iof the usual suspects was quite remarkable.
The whole thing was an appalling display of impotence and incompetence. A tantrum. What Cameron left undone, Brown did, himself. He is a loser in winner's clothing and all the buttons are coming off.
Welcome back Iain - you're right Cameron did well but Blair would have swatted him with a patronising 'I know it's all very exciting for the poor Tories but us big boys have real work to do' kind of reponse. He would have pricked Cameron's bubble at the outset. What did clunking do? He raised the stakes and lost. Yet again. Brown's words did become curiously truncated and incoherent - missing out syllables and words - was he on something for his nerves?
The press may have understood that as Matthew Parris pointed out, Brown went for the panic button on the first question. According to the Times the briefing packs given to ministers give them a list of personal insults to hit their questioner with after the line "I won't take any lectures from ... ".
The best tactic for the Conservatives has to be to get as many people as possible to sign the Downing Street petition before the next PMQ's. A challenge for the New Meejah.
Anon,
There looks to be an effort to maintain the pressure. There seems to be a very steady flood of press releases coming out of the Conservative website.
HERE
I vote Labour, for my sins. I'm furious at the leader of my party. I vote Labour in the vain belief it might bring about democratic socialism. I don't vote Labour to watch the party leadership steal second-hand policies from the Conservatives, which in any case redistribute income to the top five percent of the income bracket.
In June, we got the "son of the manse". Would that David Miliband had had the cojones to stand then. We might now have a Prime Minster who was the "son of a Marxist".
Cameron was excellent, but I feel the really revealing moment was when GB started whining ......"he (David Cameron) was the man who wasn't going in for adversarial politics".....
He sounded like a little boy wailing "Mummy he hit me"!
Gordon Brown isn't going to be able to cope with this every week, he doesn't have the resilience and his natural inclination is to hide when something he doesn't like happens. However, the Prime Minister can't dodge PMQs if he's in the country, surely?
You know more about Westminster than I do, Iain - can he dodge it?
You're absolutely right on this, Iain.
The press know that they have been treated, with absolute distain, as fools by Brown. In the process he's exposed himself as a lying cheat.
They now have a narrative of a lying, dithering, deceitful, calculating, shifty and weak Prime Minister who is clinging to office. They will counterpoint this with a fresh, invigorated opposition leader keen to gain office and be 'the change that Britain needs'.
The press won't forgive Brown the last few weeks; the man has given the media the motive and the weapon, and now they will use it.
Saturday was the day he lost the next general election.
The tin-pot PM/Chancellor doth protest too much methinks!
AND that E petition will come back to haunt Brown - it was just another mistake in a truly dreadful PMQs for him.
What we also saw was the usual BBC bias, the first television I saw was the 10 pm news on BBC1, having read the online reports I couldn't wait to see it. I had to wait, it was the third item and they did not show the readings from Courage. ITV ran it as their first item as did every other media source I could find.
It was Richmal Crompton's Violet Elizabeth Bott who thcreamed and thcreamed till she was thick.
Brown's behaviour was indeed very similar. He seems to fly into an uncomprehending rage that anyone should dare to challenge a word he says, however mendacious it clearly is. Then he is not mentally agile enough to adopt a new stance, so stolidly continues to reiterate irrelevant points, inviting even more mockery which makes him even more furious.
We haven't heard the last of the thcreaming.
Media coverage of Alan Johnson's criticism of Gordon Brown was also very thin on the ground.
Agree with Anon 10.39 - the e-petition was a most dreadful gaff and gifts Cameron his first question next week. Signatures are over 4K in under 24 hours and rising fast. If the tories get their act together like the petrol heads did with the road pricing petition then this could become a serious problem for Brown. He used a low number as evidence that there is no clamour for an election - how big do they need to get before they can't be ignored?
How about a little rascism......
As an Englishman and a Conservative, it has given me enormous pleasure to see those two Scottish Stalinists so humiliated over the last few days. When is Cameron going to come up with a coherent policy for England and prevent us being screwed by the Celts?
One of Brown's problems is that he hates rivals and surrounds himself with third rate sycophants like the useless Balls and his ghastly wife.A strong leader will select the best on merit even if they are not natural supporters.In times of crisis he can draw strength from his colleagues.Brown cannot do so.
Hey - remember this famous quote by David Miliband on Question Time last winter?
Quote:
"People will be saying 'wouldn't it be great to have that Blair back because we can't stand that Gordon Brown'," he said on BBC One's Question Time.
Spooky? :)
The Downing Street petition that Gordon Brown is promoting (we want a general election in 2007) now has 4,400 signatures - and it's growing...
sign sign sign - please!
What was most impressive about Cameron was not that he laid into Brown - that would have been easy for anyone - but that he did so with a line of attack that will resonate with the wider political message that he wants to get out about Brown: "no vision, just a vacuum", "treating the British public like fools". No focus on bottling (though the Bob Neill line was well-delivered). And he made it stick. It was a classy piece of work, and Gordon Brown will have to hope that he has few days as bad as that in the future.
This analysis and the events themselves will come home to roost. Wrong little girl on the scream and scream allusion also.
Cam - the burier of yahboo - never yahhed and booed so much in his life.
This is not an attractive trait.
This particular PMQs would of course never have come up under Blair. There would have been no question of an autumn election with TB in charge and there shouldn't have been now.
GB should perhaps begin reading the more outre blogs in the Left pantheon?
Brown's performance was abysmal, as expected, but what came over most strongly to me was that it was obvious that Cameron had been supplied by a team of scriptwriters with a set of utterances which he had been rehearsing all week.
Whenever Brown spoke you could then see Cameron rapidly going through his database of responses to select the most appropriate one. He was only one stage removed from being a ventriloquist's dummy.
David Cameron is a natural communicator. He's never lost for appropriate words and responses no matter who he's talking to or in what circumstances.
And if having a 'team of scriptwriters' was any help to anyone then Brown's wooden performances wouldn't be so embarrassing. He's got no words of his own and he doesn't know how to deliver anyone else's. He's just not up to the job.
I watched PMQs yesterday, and what was telling was the faces of the front & back benchers. They are not amused! Even more telling was Brown's childish smirking during the PBR on Tuesday. I have also been listening to PM on radio 4 the last couple of days, and one of their interviewers (Eddie Mair?) was pulling no punches in interviews with senior ministers. At least the MSM seem to have given up on the Brown Wankfest (apart from Dacre!), so maybe we'll get a more balanced view now?
P.S. It's 'thcweam and thcweam until I'm thick', and it's Violet Elizabeth Bott wot said it!
"Winning" PMQs is really terribly important isn't it? William Hague was jolly good at winning wasn't he?
I particularly enjoyed the quotes from Gordo's ouevre "Courage". And I look for to more quotes from "Where There is Greed" which he co-authored with J. Naughtie. - Not too many of course. No-one would want to accidentally increase the sales figures.
Brown lost his temper. Never before have I seen a prime minister totally lose it.
I was told that he had a foul and quick temper, but never did I think I would see it in public.
As ever, Simon Hoggart is bang on the money with his analysis...
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,,2188286,00.html
The most apposite bit for me is where he talks about the reaction of the Blairites...
Iain
You may be right about the press being OTT, and the possible over-use of 'pulverised'.
Who began the the previous paragraph with ....
"I listened to PMQs in my car. Even without seeing the pictures it was clear that Cameron pulverised Brown. "
Otherwise, yep. Brown fluffed it rather than Cameron doing him in.
Why, when Brown used the 'take no lessons from ...' line did Cameron not put the lie to that by reminding all of the policies lifted from the Tories?.
Bliar's use of the line was never challenged, and it can carry weight - so time to draw it's sting.
Was I alone indetecting tears in GB's response to one of Cameron's thrusts?
Speedbird - Pulleeeeze! I read your revolting post while I was having my first cup of breakfast tea! My stomach did a somersault! Please keep your New World Order demented ravings to yourself or post on some socialist blog where it will be unseen by the human eye.
Add to this was Iain's chilling headline about Brown and a 'Shirley Temple' moment and for a mad split second I pictured Brown with his thumbs hooked into a waistcoat, strolling up and down the government aisles, singing, in falsetto, "On The Good Ship Lollypop". Of course, it may well come to that, but I don't want to be confronted with it before I've had my first cup of tea. Give me strength!
This is too much!
slim jim [12.28 PM] Eddie Mair is currently the best, and one of the most ruthless, interviewers on radio right now. Iron fist in velvet glove.
Brown's incompetence (my current theme) shown up again. A poor speaker. He speaks too quickly, and reels off lists of 'achievements'. He should have got up, smiled, waited for the jeers to die down, and then said something witty to take the wind out of Cameron's sails.
But why am I giving him advice, for God's sake? I ENJOY his discomfiture. If ever a man deserved his comeuppance it is Gordon Brown.
cameron had a long time to prepare and it showed.
i dont agree about blair DC hammered him at PMQs right from the off ' you were the future once' and he was always looking behind him for backbench support that wasnt there.
i agree PMQs not that important but it influences the thinking of political commentators. their impressions of competence, solidarity, panic in backbenches are translated to the public
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