David Cameron and Gordon Brown trade pre-Budget blows on the economy at PMQs

Jonathan Isaby's verdict:

"A solid performance by David Cameron, acting as a warm-up for his response to Darling later on - including that excellent slap down of Brown regarding the activities of advisers".

12.21 Nadine Dorries asks Gordon Brown to apologise for Smeargate. Brown says he has done and that he has written to her and that what happened has no part to play in the politics of this country,

12.17 Brown says that the Chancellor's Budget will answer many of his questions...

12.15 Clegg says that Brown spouts meaningless headlines and promises on which he doesn't deliver. Do the one million new jobs he has promised exist or not?

12.14 Nick Clegg asks about the jobs Brown is promising and asks how many new jobs have been created so far, but gets no substantive reply.

12.12 Cameron has another go at asking the PM to admit that he failed to abolish boom and bust... and Brown again evades it.

12.11 Brown talks again about it being a global banking crisis...

12.09 Brown reels off a list of facts about the recession in the 1990s and teases Cameron for having been Norman Lamont's adviser. Cameron suggests: "perhaps we can talk about some of your chief advisers and what they've been up to". And he invites Brown to admit that he didn't abolish boom and bust.

12.08 Cameron says Brown has shown a complete failure to address the facts. No other country in the G20 has figures as bad as the UK on borrowing. Are we in the deepest recession since the Second World War, Cameron asks.

12.07 Brown prays in aid the fact that borrowing is high across the world.

12.05 Cameron says schemes aren't working and that today the unemployment figure reached that which it was projected to reach at the end of the year. How many young people are out of unemployment or training? Brown doesn't answer. Cameron tells him: 857,000 - the highest on record. He then asks whether borrowing is now at a record high.

12.04 Gordon Brown doesn't deny it and says that is why the Government is taking the action it is taking.

12.03 David Cameron starts by asking about unemployment. He asks the PM to confirm that we have seen this year the fastest rise in unemployment in our history.

Jonathan Isaby

Comments

[Cleethorpes Rock]

If anyone raises "Smeargate", it will only give Brown the opportunity to say "We're not interested in gossip and Westminster Village issues, we care about the economy and helping people". That will get played on the news and Brown looks the better for it.

We should avoid smeargate and concentrate on the economy, on how Brown's schemes haven't helped anyone but have cost a lot of money. We should ask him what advice he has for the taxpayers who now owe £5,000 each to service his failed spending and debt spree.

Economy, economy, economy.

[Paul D]

But going on the economy leaves us open to 'tractor production figurea are at an all-tome high and our policies mean there won't be 3m unemployed' etc

[Cleethorpes Rock]

I think going on the debt level is the best thing to do. £5000 per head scares the crap out of most taxpayers.

Perhaps we should ask where the £15bn of savings will come from and why they are "efficiency savings", whereas when we propose cuts of just £5bn, Labour claim hospitals and schools are on the brink of closure?

[Will B]

Ah no! Brown goaded Cameron there on advisers and he fell for it. Did you see the grin on his face? That was nasty. very nasty.

[m wood]

I thought DC's offer to compare "advisers£ was a very good response!

[Will B]

This point on unemployment... this 857,000 young peoples unemployment figure... How much is that in percentages? Because I'm not sure that the population of 'young people' is the same today as it has been in previous years.

[The Bishop Swine]

Brown's weak reply to D.C. on Unemployment was an absolute disgrace. It drives me nuts when he says that we are less in debt than the US, when they are fast becoming a banana republic. Brown has nothing sensible to say, but keeps calling us "do nothing Tory's". Brown did not end boom and bust, but maybe its time to accept that Brown is not going to admit that fact. He also is absolutely set on borrowing us into an even deeper hole.
Even Nutty Nick gets no where when he asked about the invisible one million Jobs that Brown has promised but which have not turned up. "meaningless headlines" Nutty Nick says's, and for once he is right. One cut that is absolutely essential is cutting the Labour leaders Job.

[Will B]

Very clever response yes, but I think, considering everything that went down, that was very deliberately put on the PM's behalf.

[Paul D]

Schools can't be on their lunch breaks yet, Gezmond's not been on telling us how Brown wiped the floor with Cameron yet...

[Will B]

Oh Jesus sit down Dorries. She's really embarrassing.

[Cleethorpes Rock]

Someone should bundle Nadine Dorries into a cupboard for a few weeks so she can't keep on opening her mouth on TV.

[Will B]

Urgh. First time I've watched PMQs in a while and as with the last time I watched, a good performance from Cameron and a baseless, spiteful performance from Brown. Blood pressure coming down again. I might skip the budget...

[James Strachan]

Grim Gordo said, in his last answer, that Conservative MP's were "part time" because they hadn't asked questions.

Er, isn't the Speaker who selects which MP's can ask questions ?

Isn't he a Labour trustie ?

Does he give Conservatives a fair share of questions ?

I only ask because I want to know.

[Matt Jones]

More percentages should be used - more youth are unemployed than in the last recession, more are employed - of course they're both true, we have a higher population. We need proportions and percentages to make any sense, and since neither side is prepared to use them that probably implies they both have an interest in obfuscating the truth.

[Will B]

Exactly Matt, exactly. Hence why I say Cameron's performance was good, not very good.

[David Belchamber]

Hear, Hear, Matt. We need proper transparency on all statistical matters.

[Dorothy Wilson]

What's new? Yet again Cameron - and Nick Clegg too for that matter - tried to get Brown to give a concrete answer. Yet again, he weaved, dodged and evaded resorting to his usual tactics of ranting about the long list of supposed achievements of NuLabour. He sounds more and more like an old 78 record with the needle stuck in the groove.

Also, notice how he goes all soft and daffy when a Labour stooge asks a question that he thinks flatters him. He is totally weird but, unfortunately, for the country we can't force him out for another year - even if he is bonkers.

[John Bright]

It seems that there was bias in this week’s PMQs. It was noticeable that the Speaker selected very few Conservative MPs to ask questions and right at the end the PM announced that the Conservatives hadn’t asked any questions.

I might be mistaken but I do believe that there was just a hint of collusion between Mr Speaker and the PM. Mr Speaker is supposed to be impartial in his work in the House, at least that is what constitutionally he is supposed to be. I fear that he has been weighed in the balance and found wanting, Speaker Martin, Member of Parliament for Glasgow Springburn/Glasgow North East, must go!

[Tarquin]

The Speaker didn't call any Conservatives apart from Nadine because none of them stood up at the start. They stayed sat down so that she would be called, as the Speaker has to ask alternate MPs from each side and she was the only Tory standing. It is one of the conventions of the House. So, in order for Nadine to ask her question, they sacrificed their chance to be called.
Hope it was worth it.