… and “Bendy Answers.” Labour’s Nick Smith opened with a question on nuisance off-road biking in Wales, so that the PM could boast of extra police numbers and powers. But Starmer did not stop there: he noted that the Tories and Reform had voted against the Crime and Policing Bill last June, without mentioning their reasons which included concerns over further potential restrictions on protests and free speech.
Enter the Dragon.
Mrs Badenoch repeated verbatim a question she put on 9 July based on Labour’s election manifesto: “Labour promised not to increase income tax, not to increase national insurance and not to increase VAT. Does the Prime Minister still stand by his promises?”
Sir Keir’s response then had been a straight “yes”; today it was 87 words longer, none of them to the point. “Well, well, well; what a fascinating answer,” remarked LOTO. The PM countered “no Prime Minister or Chancellor will ever set out their plans in advance,” although he had done exactly that in July and the Chancellor was now “flying kites” (as KB put it) about tax rises in the coming Budget.
There followed some unenlightening exchanges on how the nation’s finances had been handled under the Conservatives, culminating in Starmer’s statement “the Conservatives were kicked out of office because they broke the economy” - an elephant in the room threatened to trumpet at that contention. As for what according to Sir Keir are the government’s current successes… “events, dear boy, events,” said Supermac.
LOTO threw in a suggestion of her own, one that brightened the Conservative Party conference three weeks ago: scrap stamp duty on family homes. She may need to rethink that wheeze. It is always nice to be let off an impost but quite possibly the effect would be nullified by a corresponding rise in house prices. The driver for socially destructive asset inflation is the willingness of banks and building societies to lend money - especially during manias like the one that led to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, or the “Barber Boom” of the early 1970s. There must be some way to rein-in such expansion of credit if another great disaster is to be avoided. Can anyone come up with a workable scheme?
There followed an uncomfortable question from Labour’s Jeff Smith, on Gaza, IDF airstrikes and withheld aid, skirting around Hamas’ own breaches of “the peace agreement and international law.” The PM registered his concern.
In came the Leader of the Lib Dems, who as before wanted to smear Reform with “Russian meddling and money.” Starmer gladly joined in, using his scriptwriters’ buzz-phrase “Putin-friendly” twice more.
“Comparisons are odious”: at least the Russian President was directly elected last year, and with 88 per cent of votes cast. Here we have a lumbering golem of a PM not appointed by the people and continuing the destructive constitutional program initiated nearly thirty years ago by a power-obsessed Gollum. Who is more of a threat to democracy?
Sir Ed returned to another pet topic, the alleged “damage of Brexit.” He reminds me of C Northcote Parkinson’s board member who is valued because he is consistently wrong. The PM was happy to concur with his “opposition” about “the botched deal of the last Government and the damage that has done to our economy.” Of the damage done by 46 years of our EEC/EU membership he had nothing to say.
Other questions touched on health services, special needs, football, knife crime, the State pension “triple lock” and frozen personal tax allowances, the loss of bank branches, the “disarray” at the Home Office, the difficulties faced by small businesses, the opportunities for R&D offered by Cambridge University, and the King’s praying with the Pope in the Sistine Chapel.
Labour’s Annaliese Midgley deplored Reform’s opposition to the Employment Rights Bill but failed to reflect on the ERB’s unintended effect on employment levels.
As the government presses on with its digital ID scheme, it was useful to hear from the DUP’s Gavin Robinson about a massive data breach in Northern Ireland in which all PSNI police officers had their personal details leaked which “represented not only a breach of privacy, but also an increased risk to their safety and that of their families.” He told Sir Keir that the Treasury was balking at releasing financial reserves to deal with it; the PM replied with boilerplate on how much HMG has already provided to the PSNI and the Northern Ireland Executive, and handed-off this issue to the latter.
Also relevant to the theme of potential electronic disaster, the Lib Dems’ Caroline Voaden bemoaned the imminent closure of the last bank in the Devon town of Totnes and asked for a “banking hub.” Without that, readers may fear we shall be driven to a plastic card/smartphone-operated (and “tyranny-friendly”) central bank digital currency. Anyone who has watched shoppers fiddle with their devices at supermarket checkouts as the line lengthens will have a glimpse of the future. Perhaps it is time to revive local currencies instead, like the “Totnes Pound”; a scheme in the Austrian town of Wörgl during the depths of the Depression was such a boost to its economy that the central bank quickly banned it. “Freedom is frightening”, especially for the Powers That Be.
