Come with me and you’ll be
In a world of pure machination
Take a look and you’ll see
Into their obfuscation
They’ll begin with spin
Trav’lling in a world of their creation
What you’ll see will defy explanation.
With apologies to Anthony Newley’s ‘Pure Imagination’.
What a wily little creature Gordon Brown is. Last March he was strutting the world stage as host of the G20 conference and promising to inject a billion pounds of British tax payers money into the IMF fund. The European Union alone has pledged more than £50 billion pounds to the IMF, by May 2009 it was expected that the fund would eventually total in excess of £600 Billion.
Yesterday in PMQs he was repeatedly pressed by David Cameron to give an assurance that British Taxpayers would not be expected to bail out the Greek government or any other country in the Euro zone.
Three times he was asked the question, three times he refused to give a straight answer, mumbling that any bail out in the Euro zone would come from an ‘International’ alliance.
The International alliance, of course, is the IMF – into which British tax payers have already injected billions of pounds to be used in the event of a crisis such as the situation in Greece.
Alistair Darling in October 2009:
“We are one of the largest donors to the IMF.”
Britain may not be in the Euro zone, but they will be making one of the largest contributions to bailing out the Euro-zone.
The IMF is a murky business; last September it granted £311 Million to Zimbabwe despite fears that the money would merely be used to bolster Robert Mugabe’s regime. In February this year, Britain publicly endorsed the request to reinstate Zimbabwe’s voting rights on the IMF board.
The Greek government is currently struggling with a deficit of 12.7% of GDP. That is why they need bailing out by the IMF. Britain’s deficit represents 11% of GDP, according to the IMF, but Ernst & Young have predicted that it will reach 12.6% – just .1% under the level at which Greece is officially declared a basket-case that must be rescued.
Perhaps Gordon Brown is hoping that his new friends in the Mugabe regime will vote favourably when Britain queues up behind Greece with its begging bowl to ask nicely if it can have some of the money back that it pledged last March as Gordon was busy being the saviour of the Western world.
The answer to Cameron’s question yesterday is:
Yes, the British taxpayer will be bailing out Greece. As simple as that.
Update: Witterings from Witney is quite right. It was the ‘death tax’ that he was pressed on 3 times – that’ll larn me scrawling my notes.
Whilst we are on the subject of it being Douglas Carswell who had the wit to ask about taxpayers bailing Greece out – can someone explain to me how come there were 10 questions from Labour back benchers, 3 from Lib Dems, one from the welsh lot, and only 3 from Conservatives? It is supposed to be a chance to hold the government to acount – but since the Labour lot merely plant soft questions, there is not much holding to acount apart from Cameroon and Clegg. What basis are the questions chosen on and who has the final say?
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Indeed we will.
A nice bit of anti-EU feeling against Gordon Brown just before the general election will go down nicely in the polls (if you’re a Conservative, that is).
Re Letters:
How? Boiled new potato-head and his cronies are in bed with the EU. (see cast-iron guarantee on constitution treaty etc. etc.)
Err, Anna
Correct me if I am wrong but David Cameron pressed Gordon Brown on the question of the “£20,000 Death Tax” three times, not on Greece. In fact all David Cameron’s questions were on the question of social care. Douglas Carswell and Gisela Stuart were the two who both asked questions about a possible ‘bail-out’ of Greece.
If you have a passive population that does not mind being mugged, the mugger will return over and over again.
The Tories are becoming woefully inadequate as an opposition, and you only need to look to Martha Oakley’s defeat in Chappaquiddick Ted’s old seat to see where complacency and a lack of policies gets you. Not saying Gordon is like his namesake Scott (please God never let him pose topless).
Can’t understand what Hannan, Redwood etc. are playing at, especially Hannan. I keep reading his blog and nodding, then wondering how he can square his views with the current Conservative Party line or lack thereof.
It is supposed to be a chance to hold the government to account
but the Prime Minister never answers any of the questions .
Prime Ministers Question time indeed. It seems to fall foul of the Trade Descriptions Act until you realise it is NOT called Prime Ministers Answer time. No, you can question him all you want during the time allowed – and he wil evade, twist, turn or even fail to offer anything like a satisfactory answer and there’s precious little that can be done about it.
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