Thursday, July 17, 2008

"Clegg shines at PMQs" - Spectator

Fraser Nelson on the Spectator Coffee House blog has highly complimented Nick Clegg for his performance at this week's PMQs:

...I’d give Nick Clegg the best attack line. He went on the economy, and raised the prospect of a Winter of Discontent. One of the Treasury bench smiled here, which gave Clegg a great chance to say “I don’t know why he’s smiling when unemployment today is up for its highest rate for 16 years” – but I rather doubt whether one can spy a smile from that far across the chamber.
Brown was, as always, caught between his two responses on the economy. Response A is “it’s bad out there, your Great Helmsman will guide you through the storms.” And then there’s Response B, “I’m a great Prime Minister, things are really good here, record employment, lower inflation than anywhere in the world.”
Unwisely, he chose Response B claiming that British inflation was the lowest in Europe (it’s not) and that employment is at a new high (a crude function of record immigration and naturally rising population). Seduced by his ability to produce Brownies like this, Brown is tiptoeing closer and closer to Callaghan “crisis? What crisis?” territory. No one reading any newspaper today, or buying anything in the supermarket, will believe inflation is lower. And no one cares about the price of sauerkraut in Germany. Clegg’s response “he’s so out of touch he doesn’t know how bad things are” was precisely the right one – even if he then veered off into fuel poverty.

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