The Prime Minister is not up to the job

It's taken me some time today to blog my thoughts on today's PMQs. The main exchanges were over the difficult subject of the death of Baby P and the circumstances surrounding it, and I wanted first of all to read up on the facts of the case.


The BBC detail the sad life of the young boy here, if like me, you have not followed the case. The list of injuries is truly sickening. Two men and the boy's mother are due to be sentenced in December.

Baby P was known to social services, having been put on the child protection register following reports from the family GP and a paediatrician. Despite 60 visits to Baby P's home, no one from Haringey Council's social services thought that the injuries were severe enough for the baby to be taken into care.


I think everyone in the country is asking "How could this happen?" and as such - it is perfectly reasonable for David Cameron to ask questions of the prime minister on this subject and urged the PM to consider whether the time has come for Haringey social services to be taken over. In one of his most unbelievable replies ever, Brown accused Dave of 'playing party politics' over the issue.

Brown has totally misjudged the mood of the public on this. The BBC's Nick Robinson described Brown as having reacted with a 'political tone-deafness' to the mood outside Westminster. John Cruddas the left-wing Labour MP said that David Cameron was 'absolutely right' to bring up this, and Charles Kennedy echoed the thought that "Brown was out of touch".

When Brown moves off his comfort zone on the economy he just cannot cut the mustard. Instead of being able to reflect the country's outrage and show he is dealing with this serious issue, he just ducked and resorted to accusations of partisanship. This is clearly not a man who is prime minister material.

Tory tax plans

The first of the day's press conference on tax moves. Present - David Cameron, George Osborne and Chris Grayling.

"Well will not walk on by" says Dave, saying that the focus of his moves are to keep people in work, but that "Irresponsible borrowing that created recession will not help us out of it"

The new plan appears to be a £2.5bn package of measures to give tax breaks to companies who employ new workers, the idea being that companies that are still hiring workers are incentivised to do so. It is financed by the £8,000 saving to the taxpayer that is realised when people move from unemployment benefit into work. It is claimed that it will keep 350,000 in work.

CCHQ has just released this document explaining how it will work.

Dave set out the moral case for keeping people in employment yesterday and this continues the theme of compassionate Conservatism.

Other than this there was little new - the other policy proposals had been previously anounced i.e.:

- Will freeze council tax for two years
- Take family homes out of inheritance tax
- Abolish the Vehicle Excise Duty changes.


And that's it...

These measures are very modest, and I daresay that the punk tax-cutters in the Conservative party will be infuriated. There is the very real risk of being outflanked on tax by Labour (who are up next).

In response, Dave says, "We'd like to do more, but we have to recognise the extent of the public spending deficit"

Hmm - let's wait and see what Gordon's proposals are... My thoughts are, that politically, Dave's moves will have little traction with the public.