"I will put an end to Punch & Judy politics." - David Cameron
Do you remember that line from Mr Cameron when he became the leader of the Conservative Party? If I was a cynic, I might say that this was his first failed promise, or even the first claim as leader that he had no intention of seeing through.
In all seriousness, though, regular readers of this blog will no that I am no fan of career politicians from either side. A few moments ago I saw on the news some of the exchanges from the House of Commons today. Cameron, Miliband et al could scarcely have cut a less childish figure had they been dressed as Peter Pan & Captain Hook, complete with prosthetic hand.
The facile and boorish behaviour on the part of both sides does not serve well as an advertisement for British Politics. The backbenchers shout and jeer over the top of one another whilst the front benches, the supposedly "senior" politicians, seem to little but pull faces at each other. Never could a title have been less deserved than "the Right Honourable Gentleman".
Cameron seems to be developing a nasty little habit of belittling and attempting to humiliate female parliamentarians. In the past we've had episodes of "Calm down dear". Today when he received a question during PMQs from Shabana Mahmood, he sarcastically congratulated her on it being "well read". I say "developing", I wonder if a better word would be "revealing".
Just to prove that a real MP never misses an opportunity to score a cheap joke at the expense of their opponent, during the speech by Jeremy Hunt, Labour's Dennis Skinner stood to tell the House that "when the posh boys are in trouble, they sack the servants". A reference to the comments made earlier this week by Nadine Dorries, yes; humerous, yes, but not a single substantive political point was being made.
In other news, it turns out we are back in recession. So far, the Coalition have offloaded parts of the NHS to Virgin Care & other private companies, parts of the police service to G4S, cut frontline officer numbers, cut the numbers of teachers, cut services left, right and centre, and yet not only is there negative growth, Government borrowing is more than expected, and the deficit is growing by the second. At the risk of stating the obvious, where's the money saved by all these cuts going? The IMF?
Now, I'm not an economist. I'm not even an accountant. However sometimes I think that politicians attempting to control the economy is futile. The economy controls the politicians. They might as well try to take credit for the weather.
I'm not saying that Labour necessarily handed the crisis of 2008 well, but it is the Conservative's "Inconvenient Truth" that the financial crisis started in the US. Despite this, faced with difficult questions about going back into recession, Cameron reverted to the desperate "all Labour's fault, we inherited this mess" line. That might have worked in the first 6 months of this Government, but the Tories must think we're all thick if they think we're going to fall for that two years into this term.
I do indeed remember that line, and because I thought “it’d be nice if someone did” I watched with interest. The single-atom sized spark of hope was, of course, snuffed out in his first PMQs. Same old same old.
ReplyDeleteBy their usual standards, yesterday was relatively tame. Bercow had a pretty good game, overall less dodgy decisions than a typical premier league ref. I think he’s pretty good as Speaker of The House. I think you’re more right saying Cameron’s nasty side is being revealed than developing as time progresses – it’s always been there. You don’t become leader of the nasty party without being supremely nasty. That said, for a long time now I’ve thought the top job is actually the one Gideon has. The PM can make as many speeches and announce as many policies as he (or she) likes. If the chancellor says the money isn’t there and he (or she) can’t be arsed to go and find it, that policy will roll on its’ back kicking its’ little legs in the air.
It was a bit worrying yesterday in that Hunt’s sole defence was he followed due process (I don’t know why, the telly probably, I cannot say or think that phrase in anything but an American accent). Except every time he repeated the phrase he then said he didn’t follow it because he consulted two regulators which due process did not require him to do. The Machiavellian in me says this was so that if their recommendation matched his decision (whatever that may have turned out to be) and he copped any flak for his decision he could use the regulators’ decision to deflect some of the criticism, and if the regulators felt that Murdoch was the dirt digging scumbag creator of chequebook journalism anyone who follows the news suspects him to be and therefore not a fit and proper person to own a TV station, the minister could ignore it as he was not required to consult them anyway.
If it’s a choice whether my taxes go on rape crisis centres, DV refuges and decent old age pensions and the public services we’ve all grown up knowing and, err, loving (?) or things like tax efficient savings for the few who can afford them, subsidies for a few in big oil and nuclear (but not lots of small-scale renewables) I know which I’m choosing.
In addition to the comment which, if I were Shabana Mahmood would’ve earned Dave a cleaving of the plums with extreme prejudice, he also implied David Winnick was a heroin addict as a way of avoiding answering one of his questions. A truly classy performance.
Where the hell is the money going? Where did all the money (apparently the largest sum of any country – including the USA) to bail our banks out come from, at a time when no-one was lending? It can only be the IMF. For what is, effectively, an insurance scheme the IMF pursue some incredibly harsh terms should you need to make a claim to them.
The govt say we were more in the financial shit than Spain, Greece, Ireland and many other countries, hence austerity so deep. What they conveniently neglect to mention is that we also have far better means to earn our way out of that debt than all of the countries we were compared to. The financial mess we’re in, so we’re also told, is the biggest since WWII. I’m no forensic questioner but I do know how to listen out for bullshit. I was a kid once, I’m an employer now and I have my own kids too. If it’s the biggest debt SINCE World War 2 then World War 2’s cost was actually larger, yes? After World War 2 Britain managed to set the welfare state up – how can we now not afford to keep it?
And the origins of the mess? Well. I really do think that, with his time in Number 10 and his time in Number 11 before that, the man with least “it wasn’t me guv” option is Gordon Brown. It must also be said that someone had to access that cheap money to start the whole debt wheel and, for that, large sections of the British public have to put their hands up as well. As for the collapse of confidence that led to the crash... That’s a different story.
D McE