Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Don't believe the hype. It's probably rubbish

As Guido has noted, this whole rubbish tax "U-turn" sounds familiar as it was reported in October that Brown personally intervened to stop the scheme. Thus as Guido and Sam Coates say, he can't U-turn because he's already done it making it just another reanouncement.

However, something which I blogged on the day of the last "U-turn" has been missed. You see, at lunchtime on that day the Government published a response to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee on the subject the so-called "rubbish tax".

In that response it effectively said it was going ahead with the scheme by giving powers to local authorities to introduce it anyway. So there wasn't really a U-turn in October, but a neat bit of spin whereby he said one thing to get psoitive headlines and then - via the back door - in an obscure response document, said the opposite. One might even go as far to say that someone "lied".

Given this, why should anyone believe a word Brown says on this subject? The evidence suggests the last time he "U-turned" he'd spun back again without anyone noticing on the very same day. So has he really U-turned this time or is it just more spin so the papers report his (third?) relaunch in a positive way?
Image shamefully leeched from Guido

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

He will be happy to distance himself from this initiative, so long as local councils can keep hiking their fees without the government looking like it's their fault.

Anonymous said...

Gordon Brown: 'You turn if you want to, The laddies for spinning round in circles.'

Anonymous said...

There is no spin, everything is fine. Vision for the future, listening, etc.

Anonymous said...

Hehehe Gordon's been spinning and u-turning so much recently we should wrap him in copper wire and mount him between some permanent magnets (his Moral compass is fucked anyway, so that wouldn't be a problem) - and we could use him as renewable energy
Z.

Anonymous said...

It's a neat little wheeze isn't it. Let's tell the people about something we won't do but have no choice but to do because of EU regulations and blame it all on those nasty Tory-led councils.

That will teach the proles not to vote for me.

Another "not me guv" policy brought to you by Gordon Brown.

How does that Who song go? Won't Get Fooled Again.

Anonymous said...

Why do people think that just because the EU has directed that something shall be done it actually has to be done? No one else in Europe takes a blind bit of notice. The furthest any of them go is to claim that they have complied with whatever insane and expensive piece of nonsense has been decreed.

Anonymous said...

A chance to help Gordon see that he might wane before he's waxed

http://www.madame-tussauds.co.uk/GordonBrownVote/