The Sketch: Prescott makes quantum leap from fact to fudge
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Your support makes all the difference."I am not taking powers away from local levels, I am decentralising power down to local level." So the Deputy Prime Minister declared robustly.
What do you make of it? Is John Prescott offering to pass legislation to (a) give local people the power to set terms and conditions for firefighters? Or (b) give all the relevant powers to himself?
Formal logic is implacably in favour of (a), and political logic is equally in favour of (b). But Mr Prescott exists in the quantum world of New Labour where both (a) and (b) are not only possible but necessary. Mr Prescott's legislation is Schrodinger's Pig. We will not know whether it exists until we open the box.
The tension between New and Labour is coming flamboyantly out of its closet.
Quite soon we'll find out how long the project's long-term future is, what with top-up fees, foundation hospitals, Iraq and the firefighters' strike. This is the government that used to Make the Case so strongly it was denounced for spin and manipulation.
Now that arguments rage about the inherent conflicts of freedom and fairness, the Government is denounced for Not Making the Case. It's all very good for us denouncers.
Mr Prescott faced heckling and barracking yesterday about the firefighters' strike from his back bench. What was wrong with a 40 per cent pay rise, they yelled, they'd given themselves one! Mr Prescott denied it. It was a lie, he said. They hadn't got a 40 per cent pay rise. That was partially true. Only one person had got a 40 per cent pay rise. The Prime Minister (£116,000 to £163,000).
Tony Blair faced even more heckling and barracking from his enemies and an attack that seemed to hurt, if not exactly wound him.
Mr Thing did well too. So well that Labour didn't go "shhh!" when he stood up. How little tradition has come to mean.
But my word, you know, the PM suffered. There were sarcastic whoops from behind him, seemingly to attack his virility. He said he was going to deal with North Korea. "Woooo!" they went, in that curling, up-and-down, playground way. That's a first, I think, something quite new in the Labour back bench. The Prime Minister indicates that he would countenance the start of World War Three – and his troops jeer at him. Pedants might say it was more sneering than jeering. They're correct.
Gordon Brown sat there in a state of catatonic detachment. Stories abound that he's asking his old mate exactly when he is going to be standing down. Not a glimmer of support did the Second Lord of the Treasury offer the First Lord in this testing time.
Mr Blair's loyalty to his Chancellor is absolute. Nothing would be allowed to move Gordon from the Treasury, not with the stock market crashing, consumer confidence declining, the pension industry imploding, the tax burden rising, the reform process failing. Mr Blair has said the Chancellor "has done" a fantastic job with the economy. It's marvellous how carefully he chooses his words.
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