Victory for Gurkhas, defeat for Brown
It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. The Liberal Democrats never win Commons votes. Opposition day motions always fail. Those are the Parliamentary conventions*. Read more
The quality is often poor, the number of viewers is usually low, but there can be no doubt that some of Gordon Brown’s best moments are captured on YouTube. We’ve compiled a top ten here, based on the strict criteria that they are funny or cringeworthy, and found on YouTube. They are in no particular order. (We spared you the nose picking incident.) Bagehot has a thoughtful take on what this all means.
1. Brown saves the world Read more
Will the scrappage scheme cost £21,000 per UK car?
Sir Peter Viggers, the veteran Tory MP, was quoted yesterday saying: “As only one in seven cars are made in the UK, the government is effectively spending £7,000 for each new UK car sale.”
The Treasury select committee was also told – by government officials – that the scheme would fund the purchase of 300,000 new cars. But two-thirds of these purchases would have taken place anyway. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Jim Pickard is the FT's chief political correspondent, having joined the lobby team in January 2008. He has been at the FT since 1999 as a regional correspondent, assistant UK news editor and property correspondent.
Kiran Stacey is an FT political correspondent, having joined the lobby in 2011. He started at the FT as a graduate trainee in 2008, working on desks including UK companies and US equity markets before taking over the FT's Energy Source blog.
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