Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Has Brown Backed Down Or Told a Brownie?

During PMQs the Prime Minister said Labour MPs would have a free vote on Thursday on the issue of publishing receipts for expenses incurred by MPs. Funny that. This morning Number Ten and Harriet Harman have both been briefing lobby journalists that it will be whipped on a three line whip.

Did the Prime Minister

a) Not know
b) Make it up on the spot
c) Decide to back down but didn't inform the whips or Leader of the House
d) Tell a 'Brownie'

No doubt the truth will emerge during the course of the day. Maybe.

UPDATE 12.54: Apparently it's none of the above. Andrew Neil has just reported that the motion has been withdrawn. He thinks. Ferrets in a sack.

11 comments:

Andrew said...

The ever excellent Brillo has just announced that the govt. has apparently withdrawn the 'statutory instrument' - so it looks like there will be no vote tomorrow - we'll have to see what the lying sh*ts come up with next to exempt MPs from the scrutiny they deserve.

Anonymous said...

The Daily Politics are saying that Nr 10 (beforePMQs) and the Leader of the House's office (during) were saying that the vote would be whipped. Brown said it would be free at PMQs.

Clearly Brown is making it up as he goes along.

Poor old Becket swore blind that based on the PMs statement there would be a free vote.

Brillo later came back and pointed out that now it was being said that there would be no vote at all !
Question - Does Becket know what is going on?
Answer - 'No!"

These are the people that claim to be bringing competence to managing

Westminster watch said...

So the lobby say a whipped vote, GB says it will be a free vote and 30 minutes later no vote. What a shambles!!

So to answer your question B and then business managers realising they would lose withdrew it all togeteher!!

Hacked Off said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/21/mps-expenses

Once again the Bottler demonstrates all the backbone of a jellyfish.

The Penguin

Anonymous said...

err ... managing the economy.

(sorry pardon)

Eddie 180 said...

Did you notice how the Clunking Fist managed to blame the Tories for this U turn...
Apparently they had suggested that they would support the move - now it is clear that they don't. So the PM removes the SI.
Who is running the country?

Eddie 180 said...

Quote from Guardian article...
"Brown told MPs: "We thought we had agreement from the parties and we will continue to have discussions with all parties until we have agreement.""

Why, if Brown thought he had agreement from all parties, did he put a three line whip on it?

I say it was made up on the spot, but also told a Brownie in doing so.

JuliaM said...

"Who is running the country?"

No-one, by the way things are going..!

Vienna Woods said...

The situation with Gordon Brown and his potent for inveterate lies, abject refusal to answer any question directly and blaming others, has got to stop somewhere.

The gall of the man is utterly astounding and I don't have any qualms in saying that he must be more than slightly unhinged.

In this instance David Cameron is quoted as saying there was "no agreement, no discussions". If this is true (and I personally believe it to be so!) how about the Labour Party telling us who exactly within the Conservative Party were party to these discussions and fictitious agreement!

The Grim Reaper said...

In the news today;
- Gordon Brown tells lie to Parliament.
- Bear defecates in the woods.

Michael said...

"Brown told MPs: "We thought we had agreement from the parties and we will continue to have discussions with all parties until we have agreement.""

And I thought the whole point about a Government was that they had a majority, so with a 3 line whip they wouldn't need any other parties' votes - unless of course, when it went through he wanted to say that it wasn't just the Labour party with snouts firmly in trough...