PMQ analysis: Getting the knives out
Wednesday, 16 July 2008 12:00 AM
A nasty little PMQ's today, as David Cameron grabbed three or four different issues and tried to make the prime minister bleed a little before he set off on his summer holiday.
He attacked him on knife crime, on car tax, on fuel duty and on MPs expenses. It's a wise choice of subjects. Each of them carry heavy populist overtones and feature prominently in media coverage of the last couple of months.
Mr Cameron knows the PM is weak on crime. This is a traditional Tory area. Tony Blair got closest to establishing a coherent Labour position on the subject with his 'Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' speech - apparently a Brown idea, for what it's worth. It assured those social justice campaigners who think crime is the product of disadvantage and poor opportunities, but improved Labour's electability by stressing they could be just as tough as the boys in blue.
Labour have certainly proved the last part - the country's prisons are now full to bursting and a series of hard-line home secretaries have established the party's position. But crime is not going down, unless you believe the official statistics which people either ignore or discredit or - if you're a Labour minister - praise to empty rooms. Mr Brown has obviously been convinced knife crime needs addressing, and he proved the point with an endlessly boring press conference on Monday in which he repeated his enforcement mantra until no-one could take it anymore. But with the party in power for so long and gang-murder headlines still dominating the front pages, the message is not getting through. All Mr Brown can take comfort in is that the Tories haven't really presented any set of ideas on the subject that sound remotely convincing.
On car tax and fuel duty the Tories and just full of beans. The chancellor has U-turned on the latter as they knew he would, although they would have preferred him to do so in the autumn when it would look even weaker. Indeed, that's why Mr Darling did it now. But Mr Cameron does have to be careful. Both leaders are trying to appear green while not upsetting motorists too much in the early stages of an economic downturn. Is it possible? Probably not. Which one gets dropped first? The green credentials. More people vote on the price at the pumps than do on the environment.
And finally, MP's expenses. Mr Cameron has adopted a rather daring strategy of late. Despite the fact most of the financial scandals emanated from his party - be it MPs, MEPs or party chairperson Caroline Spelman - Mr Cameron is going on an offensive to tag it onto Labour. The main weapon in his arsenal is Mr Brown's absence on the day of the vote, which, while significant, is still a little weak. The discomfort on the subject has been around for a while, since the Conway affair at least, but it's been maintained as a cross-party issue. Now Mr Cameron's trying to blame it on Labour's dragging feet. He's unlikely to succeed - the public will read about this and decide all politicians are the same - corrupt and more interested in their own riches than the nation's.
So some of Mr Cameron's attack was strong, some of it less so. The same does not apply to Mr Brown who was universally bad. Bed presentation, bad policies, bad preparation, bad theatrics. He has a summer to relax - although one can safely presume he'll worry about his future instead. When he comes back he really needs to perform better at these things. That, to put it frankly, is unlikely to happen.
Ian Dunt
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