Most interesting to see the goings-on in Westminster today. With anarchy on our streets, mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together, Cameron sat behind Vince Cable as he delivered his speech, mugging furiously for the cameras as all MPs seem to do nowadays when they're sitting down. The moment, the very moment Cable sat down, he patted him on the shoulder... (Why do they always do that? Even when the Chancellor had to stand up and deliver a bitterly divisive austerity budget, he got congratulated by his front bench like he'd just won an Oxbridge debating competition. They should have been sitting there grim-faced.)
...anyway, he patted him on the shoulder and left the Chamber. He didn't even remain to listen to Cable's Shadow's response. Not only is this faintly discourteous, it also shows a lamentable complacency on his part, I think. With rumours of up to 20 Lib-Dems prepared to vote against the Motion (at least before Cable's latest amendments) and who knows how many abstaining, he could have been walking away from the first defeat the coalition faces since its formation.
I recognise that, as PM, he's probably got one or two other things to be getting on with this afternoon (that laundry won't do itself, and then there's the groceries to be collected...), but this could be a defining (and divisive) debate for the coalition. The debate still goes on as I type, some hours after the initial statement, but would it have killed him to show willing and sit there at least long enough to hear the Shadow's response?
A very, very interesting division bell will be rung this afternoon, I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment