Politics
Thu 5 Jul 2007In red corner, it's Battling Brown, in blue corner, it's Cocky Cameron, so who won the first round?
GORDON Brown got off to a shaky start at his first Prime Minister's Questions session yesterday when he was thrown on to the defensive over the government's failure to ban a controversial Islamist group and forced to plead with MPs: "I've been in this job for five days."
Both David Cameron, the Tory leader, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, scored against Mr Brown in his first performance in the weekly Commons confrontation since taking over from Tony Blair last Wednesday.
Mr Cameron unsettled Mr Brown by asking why ministers have not honoured a pledge made in 2005 to outlaw Hizb ut-Tahrir.
He also taunted the Prime Minister over ID cards, pointing out that Alistair Darling, the new chancellor, has previously opposed them.
Mr Brown, apparently nervous, appeared to stumble and stutter in some of his answers. And one of the jokes he deployed to counter a Conservative backbench attack fell entirely flat, greeted with complete silence from MPs of all parties.
Yesterday's clash, much awaited at Westminster, began with Mr Brown and Mr Cameron both seeking points of agreement on anti-terrorism measures. Then the Tory leader pressed Mr Brown on why the government still has not proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir, an "organisation that says that Jews should be killed wherever they are found".
Mr Brown conceded ministers have the power to ban the group, then responded to Tory heckling by saying: "The leader of the opposition forgets that I have been in this job for five days."
In fact, Mr Brown had been Prime Minister for seven full days. As Chancellor for a decade, he was also involved in almost every area of government policy, as he reminded MPs only moments before, while at the Treasury he was involved in freezing the assets of radical groups.
Mr Brown's slip, and the apparent attempt to distance himself from his decade in the Cabinet from 1997, drew mockery from MPs and left many Labour MPs - including some ministers - stony-faced.
Mr Brown was left stammering, and was only spared from opposition barracking when Michael Martin, the speaker, intervened telling MPs: "Let the Prime Minister answer."
There was more embarrassment to come for Mr Brown when John Reid, the former home secretary once tipped as a contender for the Labour leadership, intervened to answer Mr Cameron's question, explaining that ministers had found insufficient evidence to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. As the session ended, Tory MPs were enthusiastically mocking Mr Brown with calls of "Bring Back Tony".
The exchanges were afterwards celebrated by Tories, with Labour MPs left downcast. One minister said the Prime Minister's performance was "not exactly brilliant, but it's a bloody hard job and he will get better". A Labour back-bencher said Mr Brown had been "barely adequate, and not a patch on Tony".
But one senior opposition MP was more charitable: "It's not really fair to compare Brown on his first day with Blair after a decade, especially when you remember that Blair was probably the finest performer of his generation."
Asked how Mr Brown thought the session had gone, his spokesman said only: "He is getting on with the job of running the country."
Prime Minister's Questions is a significant political ritual and closely studied by Westminster insiders, but it often has little impact on public opinion. Between 1997 and 2001, William Hague, then the Tory leader, regularly bested Mr Blair in the Commons, but still led his party to a landslide defeat in the 2001 general election.
However, the weekly clash can have a significant effect on morale among MPs, and poor performances can reduce a leader's authority over his party.
Sir Menzies, for example, struggled to land a blow on Mr Blair, and partly as a consequence has faced persistent doubts about his position. But yesterday the Liberal Democrat leader banished those memories with a joke at Mr Brown's expense.
The Prime Minister had attempted a jibe at Sir Menzies over their abortive talks about cross-party coalitions last month, saying to him: "My door is always open."
Sir Menzies, a former lawyer, delighted his MPs when he replied that Mr Brown's door was "more of a trapdoor."
Of course, we could just move the whole shebang up to Kirkcaldy
HE NEVER smiled once. Or if he did, it was one of those on-off lightbulb efforts, and I missed it. But who could blame him? There was serious business afoot at Broon's first Prime Minister's Questions. Tropical forestry, Shrewsbury's civic dignity, bullying in Cleethorpes: just some of the fascinating subjects bunged at him yesterday. Oh, and terrorism.
To the mass vomiting sound of toffs and their imitators shouting "Hyeuh-Hyeuh!", Dave Cameron urged Broon to be tougher on terrorism.
Broon stuttered: "I...I am grateful to the Honourable Gentleman." Well, that was a lie, for a start. He bolted for safer ground: an appeal for unity, and praise for the Glaswegians who'd alternately battered and rescued the terrorists.
Dave asked him to ban a loony group that called for all Jews to be killed. Broon said you needed evidence for that sort of thing.
Dave said what more evidence did he need than calling for folk to be blootered. Broon said you couldn't just ban nutjobs willy-nilly on the basis of "one or two quotes".
He added: "I hope he will agree with me that we approach this in a sustained way." Sustained, eh? Sounds challenging. And probably better than saying: "I hope he'll agree we should approach this in a haphazard way."
More controversially, he said we needed identity cards. Cue hullabaloo, and Broon's deployment of the dreaded Majorism: "Oh yes!" The resulting jeers, cheers and triumphalist laughter were inappropriate to the subject. What a nuthouse.
Jim Sheridan (Scottish Slave Labour) criticised what he called the "sirene" voices hollering before the dust had settled in Glasgow. He called the recent attacks "a British problem that requires a British solution". You can imagine the terrorists saying: "Oh damn, they're deploying their secret weapon: glibness."
Broon told Lib Dem leader and fellow Scot, Ming Campbell: "My door is always open." More like a trapdoor, said Ming. Somebody let John Reid out, and the Airdrie pitbull slavered about Broon's "cool and steadfast" handling of things.
Rob Wilson (Con) asked why defence secretary was now a part-time job. Uproar. "Gorbals" Mick (the pantomime parliament's equivalent of our presiding orifice): "Let the Prime Minister answer." Broon did, by claiming Des Broone (no relation) was doing a "magnificent job" as both defence secretary and, more importantly, pacifier of the Scots.
After all the talk about Scots and Jews, it was inevitable that someone called McIsaac (Shona, Lab) would get up and talk about Cleethorpes. Willie Rennie (Lib Dem), another Scot, spoke about a constituent wrongly done for "murrdurr". A matter for the Scottish courts, said Broon. Gregory Campbell (DUP) praised the top Scot's Britishness and hoped Britain would unite against blah-blah. James Gray (Con) claimed he was a Scot, too, though he talked so posh he must have been from Edinburgh.
This was ridiculous. It was as hard to spot an Englishman at Westminster as finding a Scot in Embra's Heriot Row (or, for that matter, nearby Scotland Street). Even Dave Cameron is of Scots descent. We're tempted to ask: are the English too stupid to run their own affairs? Anyhoo, Broon's in charge of them noo. And, with so many capering Jocks, the Commons is home from home for him. In fact, it'd be easier to move the whole circus to Kirkcaldy. That might put a smile on his face.
ROBERT MCNEIL
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