In between all the excitement of the New Hampshire Primaries, I took a glance at domestic issues and watched Prime Ministers Questions. The first one of the year. Hearing the Hacks summarising today’s PMQs, has been a rather odd experience. Apparently many of them are trying to say it was a good day for Gordon Brown, and not so good for David Cameron. The ‘have your say’ section of the BBC’s The Daily Politics show, seems to suggest the public disagreed with the Hacks.
The public I feel, are spot on.
DC asked Gordon Brown a simple question; does he personally believe in ID cards? Yes or no? Gordon Brown refused to answer and instead asked Cameron if he agreed with ID cards for immigrants. If I remember rightly, the point of Prime Ministers Questions is for the MPs to ask the Prime Minister questions, hence the title of
However, despite the lack of objection that should have come from the Speaker (an old Labour boy, who’s supposed to be impartial), DC was happy to answer. Yes, he was in favour of biometric scans, etc. as most people in
Gordon Brown didn’t. In fact, for a second I thought I was watching an Alan Ayckbourn farce. He put Cameron down for not answering his question! What?! So our Prime Minister, upon refusing to answer whether he is or isn’t personally in favour of ID cards, asked David Cameron a second time: “are you in favour of ID cards for immigrants?”
The entire Tory Party looked on in utter astonishment. Some of the Labour backbenchers shrunk in their seats. A slightly bemused David Cameron, reminded the PM that he’d just answered that question. He then asked Gordon Brown to answer his question, (otherwise, why were they bothering to be there for?), “Does the PM support ID cards in principle?”
Not only did he not get a reply, but Prime Minister Brown actually rebuked DC for not answering the question again! The leader of the opposition actually had to answer the question three times – and even then The Great Sulk accused him of dodging the question; when DC decided that he wasn’t going to get an answer, he moved onto a different topic (economy) and Gordon dodged that one by saying “look how quickly he had to move from the topic of ID cards” – as if David Cameron lost the argument!
Truly extraordinary. The Hacks felt that DC was being too aggressive. But when he’s had a weaker PMQs, they say he’s being too soft and not enough policy. I’ve noticed that recently, in the eyes of the Hacks, David Cameron is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. I totally understand their impulse. They want to make a contest out of it, and Cameron’s trouncing of Brown on both image and policy is hurting that game plan.
Gordon Brown has been getting it as wrong as one could possibly get recently. He’s actually been the aggressor in the PMQ arena. He refuses to answer questions, instead usually resorting to booming out a “this is the man who was responsible for X, Y and Z during the 18 years of Tory government, etc.”
And my personal favourite, when DC asks Gordon Brown a straight question, with a yes – or no answer, the PM responds with a “This is the man who wanted an end of Punch & Judy politics”, like it was an aggressive question. DC’s frustration at not getting a straight answer isn’t the same as “Punch & Judy politics”. It’s quite the opposite. And it’s Gordon Brown, the grumpy Prime Minister with his unelected and vague mandate, whose performances have been more like that particular brand of seaside promenade acts.
The Hacks might be forgetting it, but let’s try and make sure the rest of us don’t fall into that trap.