Bashing the bailout

Looking back on PMQs – and reading Iain Martin’s deft analysis – it really was quite striking how both opposition leaders decided to major on the same issue: namely, that the banking bailout isn’t yet meeting one of Brown’s key aims for it and freeing up credit for small businesses.  It’s a potentially fruitful line of attack.  After all, Brown’s sunk a monstrous amount of taxpayers’ cash into this bailout, and if the opposition parties can in any way indicate that it’s not working – and to some extent characterise it as £billions worth of waste – then they could well strike a hammer blow against Brown’s borrow ‘n’ spend approach to the downturn.

The problem, though, is how to convey this attack.  In my view, Brown still came out on top today, as any references to the bailout let him resort to either financial jargon or to “the world’s copying me” histrionics.