At an angry PMQs David Cameron repeatedly asked the Prime Minister to admit that he hadn't abolished boom and bust, as he has so often claimed in the past. He was never going to get a straight answer and he knew it. Brown grew increasingly uncomfortable and truculent, trying to bring George Osborne into the argument. He accused the Conservatives of not having any solutions or any ideas and kept quoting Cameron (usually out of context). A lot of heat was generated but very little light.
Nick Clegg asked an extremely lengthy question on helping ordinary families and increasing liquidity which fell a bit flat. But he had a good line about the PM being all at sea "if not on a luxury yacht".
Gordon Brown 7
David Cameron 7
Nick Clegg 7
I hate to say it but I thought Brown took that one. Asking three times to confirm that Brown hadn't ended Boom & Bust is all very wel, but the PM just ignored it and used the opportunity to lay into the Tories.
ReplyDeleteBit of a wasted opportunity from DC if you ask me.
Jonah was exceedingly flustered there. Why can't he answer a straight question...Lying swine!!
ReplyDeleteYou spoke to eary Ian. The very last question, obviously a set up and Mr Speaker must have been part of the setup to make it work.
ReplyDeleteIn a reply to Dennis Skinner about meeting Russian oligarchs for money.
Gordon said it was a very serious matter and it must be investigated by the authorities. That is tough talk.
Gordon 10 out of 10
How can you give Cameron 7 when he kept asking the same question?
Brown clearly won that PMQs...Dave should not tackle Gordon on the economy as Gordon wipes the cfloor with him on that suject.
Poor old Denis Skinner. No-one's told him about all the new laws Gordon drew up and Labour voted for to make life easy for Russian oligarchs and various other foreign crooks. He must be suffering from aging memory loss if he hasn't noticed Mandelson and Blair's foreign billionaires infesting London.
ReplyDeletei watched PMQs for the first time in a long time (im enjoying a week's holiday!)- i realise why i rarely bother; Cameron was pretty confident, but lacked detail, Brown was confident and seemed on top of stuff but evasive. Clegg was rambling but alongside several labour mps asked good questions about fuel poverty.
ReplyDeleteSkinner was knockabout about his class war partner osborne.
I thought Karen Buck made the most important points about knife crime and the need to address it.
PMQs is really not too big a deal.
I think your scoring is probably about right, Ian.
ReplyDeleteCameron kept going with his "boom & bust" question but there wasn't a chance of him getting an answer.
Not much light thrown on anything at all, as GB didn't give a clear answer to anything.
I'm thrilled that Gordon's going to set the police on to Rothschild's protection racket. Attempting to bribe a politician is illegal as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteAnd it demonstrate's that Gordon has regained some integrity after all those years of sucking up to oligarchs to entice them to the UK.
The Tories need to stick to just selling life peerages and accepting donations for amending regulations to benefit the donor, like their Labour friends.
ReplyDeleteThat'll be OK won't it comrades?
It is a bit rich for bottler Brown
ReplyDeleteto talk about inquiries, conveniently forget that Lord Sleaze
has a huge baggage of toxic sleaze and thugs as friends! Skinner should understand that the Russians arrived in this country in Blair and Gordo's regime!
Anon 12:37. Brown and economy? Look what has haPpened after Gordo's 11 years!! The guy is a specialist in Scottish Labour Party history and not economy!
I though Brown sounded (only have radio) a bit wobbly during the repeated question on Boom and Bust but surely the way for DC to keep Brown on the hop is to be light footed and dance around him, not keep on with stolid questions which Brown retuns with slow witted oomph. If DC can't change the subject how about four different angles to the same original point?
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't he frame his question thus," As Mr Brown has signally failed to end boom and bust, can he assure the House that he will never say anything so stupid again?"
ReplyDeleteClegg was a total waste of space as usual.
ReplyDeleteBrown had a definte edge today. Cameron needs to up his game.
Have to say I am losing faith in Cameron. This sort of stupid political point scoring question along with the Osborne boat affair just goes to show out of touch with real conservatives these peopel they are.
Cameron is on the right track, but is lacking detail. He could rubbish Brown's use of figures if he employed more detail but since he lets Brown use his own statistics Brown gets away with it.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly Browns mention of Osborne looks as though it is backfiring. The BBC have spun PMQ's as "Brown calls for inquiry" and their Have Your Say page has run a thread on should there be an inquiry? Overwhleming response is no, nothing to story, Mandelson's work and evidence of BBC bias. Hundreds of recommendations for those posts, little support going the other way.
The Russian Billionaire fandango is a distraction from the real issue - which is that Osborne seems to be out of his depth and at sea - on dry land!
ReplyDeleteWIll somebody tell the cowardly Jock Broon that Cameron sits in FRONT of him NOT to the left of him, the coward cant even bring himself to look the man in the eye.
ReplyDeleteBroon and LcLabour OUT!, England doesn't want YOU! - or your puppet "Lord" Mandy brought back to weave his black magic either!
One year ago Cameron was strident in his call for less government regulation of the business and financial sectors. He accused GB of being a Stalinist control freak. So Cameron's solution for the British economy was unequivocally LESS not MORE regulation.
ReplyDeleteHardly surprising that now his imperatives have been shown to be wanting that he hasn't much else to say. A period of silence would be welcome.
Angry? Yes, anyone watching that and have even a billionth of a percent of a clue about what is going on in this country would be angry.
ReplyDeleteThe whole 'con' that has been New Labour and the sheer depths of debt (some 161% of GDP -- see Brookes Newmark MP's informed paper on this) that have dumped upon us and generations to come is what many would consider at best criminal and at worst treason against the British nation and its people.
Yet Brown continues to fiddle the figures, warping the public record in his favour, and blatantly pretending that he has any merit whatsoever.
He hasn't: he is absolute trash!
Now, where I come from, we get rid of our trash rather than leave it hanging around to contaminate everything within range. Why does there appear to be no mechanism to get rid of this trash?
Oh, and while they're at it, whoever does one day have what it takes to do the necessary, get rid of that lump of grabage Draper and his cronies as well.
Oh, on "Beast of Bolsover" Skinner: I recall hearing his contribution (if that's not an overstatement) to the Labour Party conference a couple of years ago. Talk about a "boulder on the shoulder"...
ReplyDeleteHis version of inverted snobbery was to try to drag the country down to the lowest possible denominator, and then to try to devise even lower standard.
Skinner is yet more of the old/new Labour nineteenth-century outlook that needs to be chucked in the bin with the rest of the garbage.
They are all worthless to the current millennium; and anyone decent would not be a member of the Labour Party, let alone an MP.
Any of them! Not after all this time...
Hmm about today's PMQs.
ReplyDeleteCameron knew that Brown would not answer him on the economy; but then again Gordon's immediate problems have an SNP tinge to them, and there he is far more exposed.
Personally I would be happy if Osbourne gave way to Kenneth Clarke - then the Labour Front bench would be up against it. Pity Ken is so EU-keen. Not quite at LibDem poodle levels, but getting close.
Brown proved that he has absolutely no moral scruple in his response to Skinner's question. Osborne has categorically denied any offence, so who "the authorities" are who are meant to investigate it is a mystery. Tony Wright has already said his Select Committee won't touch it.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is Brown doesn't have a bipartisan bone in his body and is always champing to get a jibe in at the Opposition because he loathes the Tories the way any spotty schoolboy revolutionary would. Most grow up but Brown didn't.
Lesson: don't give the bastard an inch. Go for the jugular.
Pity they can't get down to actually governing the country instead of this dog and pony show.
ReplyDeleteCould Osborne have committed and offence?
ReplyDeleteThis is the section of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) that he thinks may land George Osborne in trouble.
Evasion of restrictions on donations
Section 61 - Offences concerned with evasion of restrictions on donations
(1) A person commits an offence if he-
(a) knowingly enters into, or
(b) knowingly does any act in furtherance of,
any arrangement which facilitates or is likely to facilitate, whether by means of any concealment or disguise or otherwise, the making of donations to a registered party by any person or body other than a permissible donor.
(2) A person commits an offence if-
(a) he knowingly gives the treasurer of a registered party any information relating to-
(i) the amount of any donation made to the party, or
(ii) the person or body making such a donation,
which is false in a material particular; or
(b) with intent to deceive, he withholds from the treasurer of a registered party any material information relating to a matter within paragraph (a)(i) or (ii).
i.e. could even mentioning a donation be sufficient to commit an offence?
Sorry Iain, Brown didn't appear at all 'uncomfortable and truculent' but Cameron repeating the same angry, point scoring b/b question several times, did.
ReplyDeleteAnd if he thought for one second that GB would respond with a meek mea culpa, then he was stupid and on a hiding to nothing.
He wasted his questions, plus a couple of cracks at Osborne's expense, mean a Brown win.
I wish Cameron would stop the trying to get GB to admit anything, he won't and we know he won't.
ReplyDeleteHe should be saying, despite what you say, the ONS etc state that...... isn't a disgrateful state of affairs that ...... We offered support in the bail-out of the banks but we certainly didn't support the measures that got us here....
The BBC will edit the questioning as ineffective if they get the chance, you know that too. Attack is the best defence available now.
Too coin a phrase, they should shove it down his throat then kick him up the arse to ensure it stays there, believe me the bit in between, for this PM is missing, he hasn't the stomach for a long battle....before long GB will start to splutter on the things that are sticking in throats of the poeple of this country.
Thanks for the link to Mandate blog Iain.
ReplyDeleteApart from their take on Mandelson, they also have their own assessment of PMQ's which is excellent.
http://www.yourmandate.com/blog/?p=133
Anon 12:37
ReplyDelete"Gordon said it was a very serious matter and it must be investigated by the authorities"
Does anyone know which authorities investigate non-donations?
Who should we call when someone has infringed the Not Receiving Illegal Donations Act?
*Confession*
I am curious as I also have not received one.
Re: Anon 2:53 PM
ReplyDeleteBreaking PPERA in this instance clearly rests on the word "arrangement".
Do I think Osbourne was trying to make an arrangement? Yes. (Why else did he meet his new friend 4 times in 3 days, and take Feldman along too?) Can it be proved he was? Maybe/maybe not.
I think the appropriate authorities in this case wear size 10 boots and have flashing blue lights on top of their cars.
Brown is a busted flush. He's just too arrogant to admit it. I don't see any harm in DC repeating his attack re boom and bust. It's what Brown will be remembered for.
ReplyDeleteSkinner is nothing more than a hypocritical anachronistic clown.
ReplyDeleteLike all the other frauds on the left, he's never let the facts get in the way of an opportunity for pathetic moralising.
I remember years ago at the height of the Tory bonkbuster era, there wasn't a wednesday went by without skinner spouting some populist bile about Tory sleaze. Right up until it was discovered that he'd been shagging some old kipper on the sly.
Hansard has uniquely omitted to give the Skinner question a number (between Q9 and Q10); what might the Speaker (or we) read into that?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/02.htm
The whole Osborne saga amazes me. Osborne, a shadow minister met up with a Russian Oligarch on a Yacht. In that yacht was also a serving EU Commissioner for competition who spent his nights as a guest in that yacht. There is a talk of 4-5 meetings and a question of donation to the Tory Party raised(?) No money donated. Perhaps an indiscrition but not a sleaze as Osborne an oppostion MP did not get the alleged money for his party. The enquiry should be about Lord Sleaze and about his propriety as a business secretary now. Cameron should have planted a question to ask from his backbencher. The BBC,for ever Blair and Brown outfit with Peston the son of a labour peer is hyperventilating as the labour mouthpiece.
ReplyDeleteI heard a joke from an Indian friend of mine which he said was from a satirical show in India.
The story runs like this:
A motorist pulls up his car near a police contable pounding the street.
Motorist: Officer, could you direct me to the Dogs and Cats pub.
Police constable: Go stright sir , after that traffic light,turn right and you see the pub.
Motorist: Thanks, officer.
Police constable: Is there anybody to drive you home sir after the pub visit?
Motorist: No officer.
Police constable: In that case, you are under arrest sir, for a possible drink driving offence later! Whatever you say will be presented as evidence against you!
Motorist: Officer, I am going there to sell our new game machine.
Police constable: I am sorry sir, no use in protesting. You are going to that pub. You may buy a drink or two later. That is good enough for me. May I ask you get out of that car sir!
Silly bottler Brown. Cameron should get a bit nastier, just as he did in the PMQs after Brown bottled the election.
Brown clearly won that PMQs...Dave should not tackle Gordon on the economy as Gordon wipes the cfloor with him on that suject.
ReplyDeleteBrown couldn't wipe his a*** on the economy. Get real!
anonymong:
ReplyDelete"This is the section of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) that he thinks may land George Osborne in trouble"
I see you have done a cut and paste from 3Line Whip.
Thje simple answer is: parse the sentance. There cannot be an offence unless there is a donation. I could go further and say that since there was no donation, there were no arrangements, and since all Osborne ever did was at most to discuss it but reading between the lines it looks like all he ecer did was introduce Feldman, then none of that is an offence.