So farewell, Gorbals Mick?

The convention may be that MPs do not openly criticise Mr Speaker, but time is surely running out for Michael Martin? Although he would like us to think that the criticism he is presently enjoying is simply the result of good old fashioned snobbery, the truth is not quite so clear. Nick Robinson has an excellent post, Theories on the Speaker, which looks at why Martin has suddenly got so many friends at Westminster: and why some want him to go. Certainly he has done himself no favours, but having the Gordon Brown encomium,

When asked about Mr Martin’s predicament, Mr Brown said: “It’s a matter for the House of Commons. Mr Martin has been a very, very good Speaker”

is probably the kiss of death.

Another betrayal of trust

Another reason for disliking Gordon Brown. Watching Friday’s BBC News on the coroner’s inquest into the death in action of Captain James Philippson in Helmand Province, I was most struck by the juxtaposition of a film of a grinning Gordon Brown meeting troops in Afghanistan, and the interview with Anthony Philippson, Captain Philippson’s father. According to the BBC, Mr Philippson said,

“He [the coroner] laid into them [the MoD] particularly badly for the lack of equipment. I do hold the MoD responsible for James’ death but it is not just the MoD, it goes much deeper than that. The Treasury and the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, will be really to blame for what happened. The MoD was starved of cash by the Chancellor”.

He was in fact far ruder about Gordon Brown, and the written report on the BBC website not only doesn’t give any feel of Mr Philippson’s cold fury, but edited some of it out. What he actually said (and the video is on the BBC website) was:

“It’s not just the Ministry of Defence, it’s the Treasury and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, our present Prime Minister, the miserable, parsimonious Mr Brown. He’s really the person responsible for what happened.”

When recording a narrative verdict in which he said Captain Philippson was unlawfully killed, Mr Walker, the assistant coroner for Oxford said:

“They [the soldiers] were defeated not by the terrorists but by the lack of basic equipment. To send soldiers into a combat zone without basic equipment is unforgivable, inexcusable and a breach of trust between the soldiers and those who govern them.”

The organ-grinder’s monkey

The non-dom story that has been running all week points up a couple of unattractive features about the present government. First is the impression that senior ministers are mere cyphers, and that the only person who counts is Gordon Brown. Secondly, that when things go wrong, the responsibility is never the government’s. Rather, it is invariably portrayed as the failure of a government servant, and usually a very junior one at that. Fessing up is not something this government does.

For a balanced view about the matter, read What did you do in the non-dom wars in this week’s Economist.

“Calling the retreat [as Alistair Darling ‘backed away from the most contentious of his plans to tax rich foreigners living in Britain’] a “clarification”, the Treasury claimed that many of its proposed new rules had been drafted in error. The deflection of responsibility was reminiscent of earlier attempts to make an unidentified “junior official” a scapegoat for losing millions of citizens’ tax details.”

and

“The crisis may have passed, but the non-dom wars have left their mark. Foreign financial folk do not feel quite as welcome in London as they did, or quite so sure that the government knows what it is doing. One casualty may yet be Mr Darling himself, whose reputation for competence has been sorely strained. But was it really his fault or Gordon Brown’s?”

The problem for Gordon Brown is that the buck for a lot of what is happening, will eventually stop somewhere. Like it or not, it will be with him.

A fair cop?

Times are hard and it will be a difficult year (see my immediate past post, Stormy weather), but Gordon Brown was at his hectoring worst during PMQs today. Pressed on why the Home Secretary wouldn’t accept the recommendation from the independent tribunal on police pay, all he had to offer was his government’s anti-inflation strategy. If government is all about trust, then things are going from bad to worse. Badly done, Mr Brown.

Stormy weather

Mervyn King was very honest last night in his speech to the South West CBI-IoD dinner about what is in store for UK plc in 2008. Listening to him with upwards of 725 other South West businessmen was a sobering experience: no flashy delivery, no blinding with science, no self-congratulation on a job so far done well (how unlike Gordon Brown, who cannot resist telling us that even if things aren’t quite as good as they might be (a) it isn’t his fault and (b) that that it is as good as it is is all down to him and his best friend Prudence). Instead, from the Governor a critical summary of where we are, why and what is in store. Aside from the main points in his speech, and see an excellent report by Norma Cohen in today’s FT, two things remain in my mind: that as consumers we must save more and spend less (fairly obvious, but blindly ignored by most of us); and that the fear of what is still to come out of the sub-prime catastrophe in the US is as potent a destabilising force as what is already known.