Thursday 5 December 2013

Autumn in December

Here I am referring specifically to the Chancellor's regular 'autumn statement', which this year has been delayed a short while owing to the Prime Minister's visit to China. That visit secured £6 billion of new deals among other things, so is significant enough that this statement would be either misleading if it omitted it, or presumptuous if it assumed anything ahead of deals being formalised.

I am not going to go into details on the Statement itself, as others are already doing just that and will make a good enough job of it (provided my by-now well trained readers apply their reasoning and judgment to what they read, hear or see, as I have been teaching over the years), so – at least for now, while the debate is still going on in the House of Commons – will limit this post to an aspect that only a few outside the Chamber have seemingly noticed, at least as yet.

That aspect is that the Labour benches, initially noisome as is their perennial way, have quietened down as the good news about Britain and its economy continued to be presented to Members and to the viewing public. More than that, those same benches' occupants have become gloomy and even despondent.

This bares a raw truth that applies only when the Commons is this way round, and did not occur (as I recall) when Labour were in office. The only Labour member making any real noise was an incessantly shouting Ed Balls while responding to the Statement.

I have, just minutes ago as I write this, summed that truth up in a single 'soundbite'-type of sentence, in this tweet...
"The last thing Labour want is for the UK to be doing well."
That is just so telling, isn't it, and so true too, as the scenes in the Commons plainly show!

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