An inconclusive engagement at Prime Minister's Questions, as the main party leaders get used to their new clothes for the Great Cross-Dressing Election of 2010. Gordon Brown redefined spending the money he intends to borrow from future taxes as "helping people", and David Cameron posed as the guardian of Prudence.
But Cameron's best line was borrowed from the Old Master, Tony Blair. He said it wasn't surprising that the Prime Minister did not agree with various quotations from other ministers and from Derek Scott, the former prime minister's economic adviser, but he quoted from the old prudent Brown and asked, "Does he agree with himself?"
That is from NOW (That's What I Call Leading the Opposition) Vol. 48, a compilation of Blair's greatest hits against John Major (1 March 1995, on the subject of Europe):
I find it odd that he cannot agree with his Chancellor, I find it strange that he cannot agree with his Secretary of State for Employment and I find it unbelievable that he cannot agree with himself.
There was nothing inconclusive about this cross-chamber engagement; Cameron asked some very pertinent questions about from which magic top hat Gordon Clown was going to pull the cash needed to fund his latest pre-election bribe and, as usual, he refused to answer, giving instead a party political broadcast on behalf of the Smoke and Mirrors Party.
Posted by: Keith Lonsdale | Wednesday, 19 November 2008 at 07:13 PM
Keep saying it, Keith - maybe some day it'll come true.
Posted by: Louise | Wednesday, 19 November 2008 at 07:22 PM
Louise- either you saw a different PMQ's, or you are more ready than I to swallow empty rhetoric.
This was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a moment of glory for Cameron, a man who is barely up to the job in hand. However, there was no tangible indication from The Glorious Leader about how he is going to spend £billions that he doesn't have, and the implications for the future of even more borrowing. The question was asked, severally, and it wasn't answered.
We are in an enormous hole, and so is the rest of the world, but our hole is deeper than most thanks to 11 years of profligate spending and excessive taxation. Until this position is acknowledged by the man responsible for its creation, there will be no fix.
Posted by: Keith Lonsdale | Wednesday, 19 November 2008 at 07:56 PM
Doesn't even John Rentoul get bored with his routine product - everyone else surely has? It can be distilled down to: Brown is far inferior to Tony Blair (who shouldn't have been forced out because he was dead right on Iraq and keeping Britain close to George W Bush), Cameron is the politician now most like Blair, therefore he will win the next election by a landslide whatever opinion polls in the real world might be saying. Yawn, yawn, zzzzzzzz.
Posted by: William | Thursday, 20 November 2008 at 10:16 AM
"Doesn't even John Rentoul get bored with his routine product?"- clearly not!
Posted by: Keith Lonsdale | Thursday, 20 November 2008 at 01:37 PM