Our prime minister may have a big clunking fist, but he is not nimble on his feet. Take question time yesterday, when Stephen Crabb, a Tory, asked: "Will you tell us what is happening on Britain's streets, when the home secretary needs an armed police escort to buy a kebab?" Tories were in tucks of laughter. Julian Lewis yelled: "Skewered!" By parliamentary standards this was Oscar Wilde.
It all gave Gordon Brown enough time to come up with the correct answer, along these lines: "The home secretary is, unlike almost everyone else, a specific target for terrorists. For this reason she needs a police escort whether buying a kebab in Hackney or performing a fan dance in Helmand.

"Would a future Conservative leader deny protection to the home secretary? In which case, nobody in their right mind would take the job, you blithering idiot." But he didn't. Having the agility of an ageing sumo wrestler after a four-course lunch, he huffed about wanting us all to feel safe, adding: "There are more police than ever in our country ..."
The Tories, already feeling merry, twigged, unlike the prime minister, that a very large number of those police were at that moment marching on Westminster, to protest against his weird decision not to backdate their pay rise.

The delighted Tories resembled football fans who see their team score in the first minute, then watch the other lot score an own goal in the second.

David Cameron produced a bunch of zingy one-liners. Labour people point out that these are "pre-prepared", and so they are. In which case, you would think that the prime minister would be a little readier to deflect them. The Tory leader asked questions which he must have known would elicit no answer, such as, how much is this Northern Rock fiasco going to cost us all? Of course Brown did not reply, partly because he doesn't know and partly because the real answer would send MPs gibbering in terror from the chamber.

Cameron was scathing about the prime ministerial chats at 40,000 feet with Richard Branson. Brown was like "a used car salesman who will not tell someone the price, will not tell them the mileage, and will not give them a warranty. He has gone from prudence to Del Boy without touching the ground!" (I had a happy vision of a Reliant Robin marked Branson Independent Trading - Peckham and Mustique.)

Brown's only reply was to complain that the Tories changed policy on a daily basis. (So has the government, though when they chop and change, it matters.) Cameron said Brown didn't know the difference between administration and liquidation. "Administration is what the government are in at the moment; liquidation is what the British people are going to do at the next election."

Brown repeated himself, again. Perhaps he is still jet-lagged.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem regent, repeated the line from his grand vizier, Vince Cable, that Brown was nationalising the debts and privatising the profits. "He is running scared of the Conservatives!" he said, and the Tories cheered as they gazed at the lumbering Brown.


See Original Article

If you have unmanageable debts in your company then call us now. We can help reduce the payments and allow you to take back control.

Call us on: 0800 071 1616

Email us on: info@debtsgone.co.uk

Website: www.debtsgone.co.uk