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Tom Richmond: Gordon puts his language lessons on hold
GORDON Brown says he wants to be a teacher when he leaves Downing Street. I'm not so sure.
The other day, his aide Ed Balls, the Normanton MP and Schools Secretary, gave Brown some homework to do courtesy of an interview with this newspaper. In short, he said the PM needed to work on his communication skills.
Can Brown persuade pupils to listen if he is incapable of doing so himself?
Take this Commons exchange – one of the first since Brown promised to start using clearer language as part of the Balls tutorial.
In asking about the second referendum to be held in Ireland over the ratification of the EU Lisbon Treaty, Labour backbencher Ian Davidson could not have been more clearer – or succinct.
He asked: "Can the Prime Minister confirm that the people of Ireland are to be asked to vote on exactly and precisely the same wording of a treaty that they previously rejected?"
Mr Brown's response: "The Irish brought forward concerns about abortion, family law, taxation and neutrality. In the protocol, it is made clear what the treaty means in those areas. The protocol that they are to receive is exactly similar to the protocol that we have received."
Are you any the wiser?
I'm not.
I can only assume that the Prime Minister was, yet again, trying to avoid the question – by bamboozling Mr Davidson, and the country at large, with waffle and obfuscation to mask the EU's dirty tricks over the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
In other words, normal service has been resumed.
HERE's one occasion where Gordon Brown was clearer with his words.
At the 2008 Labour Party conference, when he was, once again, fighting for his very political existence, he promised to abolish prescription charges for those suffering from
long-term conditions.
The Labour delegates lapped it up and soon forgot about their troubles.
Except, that is, Halifax MP Linda Riordan who pointedly asked in the House of Commons for "a clear timetable for the abolition of these charges for those with chronic diseases, to help alleviate their problems".
Unsurprisingly, she did not receive a straight answer. After agreeing that the current arrangements had to be reformed, Mike O'Brien, the newly-appointed Health
Minister, said nothing would happen until the Government received a consultant's report later this year.
"It is quite a complex exercise – and we will then set a timetable for how we will be in a position to implement it," he added.
In other words, nothing will change prior to an election. It is another example, therefore, of Gordon Brown not being straight with voters.
Perhaps he also needs remedial studies on how to tell the truth – as well as clearer communication.
ANOTHER Health Minister, Gillian Merron, was not happy with Shipley MP Philip Davies when he suggested the ban on tobacco displays in
shops will threaten the financial viability of such stores and do little to combat smoking.
Not so, said Ms Merron. This is just a myth being spread by the Tory, she said, and that "there is a great deal of evidence to show that tobacco displays not only encourage young people to take up smoking, but discourage people from quitting".
What she could not answer, however, is whether youngsters are unduly influenced by the number of smokers who are now huddled outside every pub and club.
IF I had a pound for every time someone had told me that "we should get rid of every MP" following the expenses scandal, I'd be very comfortably off.
Yes, many dishonourable Members are quitting at the next election. Their number is likely to include some of those grandees who lost out to the tainted John Bercow in the contest for the Speakership.
Yet, there's a price that Britain will pay if such experience is consigned, en masse, on to the political scrapheap – and that is there will be few MPs in the next Parliament who know how the system works, and how the Government can be held to account.
THE furore over the 300m that it will cost to introduce new speed limit signs is not part of a coherent plan, on the Government's part, to improve road safety. Given that some local authorities will foot the bill, and others will not, it seems to me to be a deliberate ruse to cause widespread confusion – and thereby maximise the revenue that the Treasury can acquire from speeding fines.
Do others agree?
IF the BBC want to save a few bob, they could cut down on the number of Five Live staff who are decamping to Cardiff for next week's Ashes Test between England and Australia. Evidently, the number has reached 40 – more than the number of runs that some English batsmen may score all summer.
Why bother when many of the pundits, who listeners like and respect, struggle to get a word in edgeways because many of the radio station's presenters are so fond of their
own voices?
tom.richmond@ypn.co.uk
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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