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Prime Minister’s Questions – another ‘la la la’ affair
Posted by Tory Rascal (@toryrascal)
Wednesday, 21st October 2009
Very dull PMQs today. David Cameron’s line on the Royal Mail – that the Government’s decision to kill off the organisation’s part privatisation was one of the contributory factors to the dispute – was met with the usual dodging and reeling off of interminably long lists of pretended Tory failings over the economy. The Prime Minister does love his lists. Perhaps he could lighten his image by singing them: I am the very model of an out-of-date Prime Minister, I come across as arrogant, peculiar and sinister…
Brown’s response to Nick Clegg over Mervyn King’s comments about splitting up banks was weaker still. The Prime Minister seems to be unable to comprehend the concept of irony: posing as a great champion for competition in the banking sector sounds absurd when he personally approved the merger between Lloyds TSB and HBOS, a move so inimicable to competition that one has to wonder if he even understands the meaning of the word.
Perhaps the most interesting supplementary question was asked by Tory MP Richard Ottaway: would the PM do something about the decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions to introduce a new policy over assisted suicide without a Parliamentary debate? This issue – linked closely to the sort of judicial activism dissected in Dan Hannan and Doug Carswell’s The Plan – is something that should concern anyone who believes passionately in the supremacy of Parliament. Why have a legislature at all if judges and other legal officials can impose their own narrow interpretation on the laws of the land? The PM’s response was weak and noncommital. I wonder whether he thinks that calling an end to rule by decree would be somewhat self-limiting?
Overall, this was a fairly lacklustre affair. The PM was on poor form even by his own usual standards, managing to fluff his response to Nick Clegg by displaying an astonishing inability to understand the issues at stake. While a bit stronger against David Cameron’s line on the Royal Mail, he nonetheless evaded any discussion of the failed privatisation Bill and resorted to his increasingly desperate tactic of deploying incomprehensibly long lists of pretended Tory failings.
Another seven months of this? Hand me some ear plugs.
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