Above: the Houses of Parliament from Victoria Gardens (which has replaced College Green as the venue for al fresco television interviews with MPs).
At twelve noon I watched Prime Minister’s Questions. Only Terry (our MD) was also in the Board Room. It is very noticeable that many people have stopped taking lunch breaks.
The Prime Minister was sat between Alistair Darling and an anonymous front bench nonentity.
The session began with Tim Sheridan asking about how ordinary people can be protected from the worst effects of the economic downturn. This was obviously a planted question as Gordon Brown used it to make an announcement about judicial guidance to make house repossessions a last resort (“They’re worried about the rise in repossessions” said Terry, “it was the rate of repossessions that fatally damaged Major”). This is the second week running that Gordon Brown has used PMQs to make an announcement.
David Cameron asked a tranche of questions related to government borrowing and accused the Prime Minister of hiding government debt. The Labour benches seemed to explode with barracking and general shouting at this point. The Speaker intervened to calm them down (telling a Mr Tuohig to behave himself).
David Cameron taunted Gordon Brown about his long-standing claims to have abolished “boom and bust”. The Prime Minister didn’t seem to have an adequate response to this. He gabbled through a list of government achievements, reading from sheets of paper stuck about with post-it notes (“In the old days they would shout No Reading at him” said Terry).
“Have you abolished boom and bust, yes or no” asked David Cameron impatiently, as if he were a headmaster trying to get a naughty schoolboy to admit he has been telling fibs.
Gordon Brown read another list from one of his sheets of paper (or perhaps he reread the same list).
David Cameron used the last of his six questions to ask again about boom and bust.
Gordon Brown lamely launched into an analysis and deconstruction of Cameron’s rhetorical style (he does this every week, so that it has entirely lost its novelty).
Labour MP Angela Smith asked what could be done about outrageous energy prices, and Gordon Brown repeated his recent comments about falls in energy costs being “passed on” to the people.
Nick Clegg asked three questions for the Liberal Democrats. Since Vince Cable’s devastating jibe about Gordon Brown being Mr Bean almost every Liberal Democrat questioner has adopted the style of a would-be stand-up comedian. None of these attempted jokes has had any success, and even Vince Cable has not managed to land a second blow.
Labour’s Fabian Hamilton asked again about profiteering by the energy companies.
Conservative John Whittingdale asked a question about tax relief for commercial buy-to-let landlords – as buy-to-let landlords are a leading component of Old Labour demonology (which, given a new impetus by the “fall of capitalism”, is beginning to resemble the seven-headed hydra of Tsarist oppression), one knew as soon as he said the words “buy-to-let” his question would not be taken seriously.
Labour Lynda Waltho laughed at Conservative attempts to understand women voters. Liberal Democrat Andrew George asked a question that was so garbled I couldn’t understand it. Labour Sally Keeble asked the Prime Minister to bask in the in the well-deserved glory of the one-hundredth new hospital since ’97 (“They are finally getting round to implementing Enoch Powell’s Hospital Plan of sixty-one” said Terry, “only forty seven years late!”).
Elfyn Llwyd asked a serious question about the unreasonably high rate of ex-servicemen who end up in prison. The House of Commons fell completely silent, as if amazed that someone should use the session to say something intelligent. In reply Gordon Brown used the word “Veterans” as a blanket adjective to describe former soldiers – it didn’t really sound right (I think using the word in this way is an Americanism).
More questions followed, including one about knife crime that was obviously planted as Gordon Brown immediately read a long and well-structured reply from one of his sheets of paper.
Adrian Sanders asked my favourite question of the session, about water and sewage in the south west – it had a surreal note of parish-pump politics intruded into the great affairs of state.
Old Labour MP Dennis Skinner asked a class-war question about the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne being entertained on a luxury yacht in the company of a Russian oligarch and arch-class-traitor Peter Mandelson (I half-expected him to finish by quoting Friedrich Engles, saying “all these people should be shot!”).
Prime Minister’s Questions came to an end with Gordon Brown looking tired, worried and defensive.
The cameras went back to the studio where Andrew Neil interviewed Treasury Secretary Yvette Cooper. Or rather attempted to interview her, as every time he tried to speak she talked over him. The performance reminded me of Vickey Pollard’s court appearance.
Vicki Pollard in court: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WR3Noc5O-E
Yvette Cooper in Andrew Neil's studio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEyj9Ui6p20
Prime Minister's Questions: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00f6lqc/Prime_Ministers_Questions_22102008/
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