Cameron derides PM over 10p income-tax climbdown

DAVID Cameron launched a blistering attack on Gordon Brown yesterday over his apparent cave-in to rebel Labour MPs over the 10p tax rate.

During Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Brown was forced to defend the decision to compensate people who have lost out by the removal of the lowest income-tax band, but he insisted he had not been "pushed about" by his back-benchers.

Without any concessions, however, he would have faced defeat over the Budget measure.

The climbdown was pounced on by Mr Cameron, the Conservative leader, who condemned Mr Brown as "a loser, not a leader" and said he had suffered a "massive loss of authority".

But in a series of TV interviews after the heated exchange, Mr Brown insisted that he had not caved in. "I don't think I've been pushed about at all. What I've done is listen and made the right long-term decision," he said.

He stressed that the "fundamental" change of scrapping the 10p tax band, made in his last Budget as chancellor, was still going ahead.

Measures to mitigate the effects of the tax change on 5.3 million people emerged just before Prime Minister's Questions. They will include larger winter fuel payments for pensioners aged 60-64, changes to working tax credits for workers without children and the possibility of raising the minimum wage for younger workers.

All the changes will be backdated to 6 April, when the 10p rate was abolished, but precise details are not expected until the pre-Budget report in October.

Some 45 Labour MPs – more than enough to defeat the government – had signed an amendment from Frank Field, the former Labour welfare minister, demanding a delay in the scrapping of the rate. Mr Field withdrew his motion shortly after the new proposals emerged.

Mr Cameron accused the Prime Minister of "weakness, dithering and indecision" and said the U-turn had been forced on him by a threatened Labour rebellion on this year's Budget.

In the Commons, Mr Cameron referred to the comments last week of the Labour peer Lord Desai, who compared Mr Brown's lumpen style to porridge.

To hoots of derision, he added: "Another week like this and it will be Cheerios. Is this the case that the Labour Party have finally worked out that they have a loser, not a leader?"

But Mr Brown defended the decision, saying 85 per cent of the tax rate's benefits were enjoyed by better-off taxpayers.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said afterwards: "In a last-gasp attempt to appease its own back-benchers, the government has cobbled together a set of half promises which will not even be properly revealed for another seven months.

"People who have just seen their tax rates doubled are unlikely to be comforted by the reassurance that the government is going to tinker with an overly complex and failing tax credit system, which people under 25 aren't even entitled to."

A loser not a leader – the schoolboy taunt that hits its target

Gordon Brown must have felt the below-the-belt punch dealt to him by David Cameron yesterday.

The Tory leader taunted him with one of those names that simply sticks: branding him a "loser, not a leader".

In a string of insults, it was the Tory leader's parting shot that inflicted the most damage.

Witnesses could tell. The Prime Minister winced. A depressed looking Des Browne did not blink for about four and a half minutes. (OK, so that was not that unusual). With his back almost turned to the Tory leader, Brown gasped for air, and then resentfully spat back: "Here's the choice – a Labour government that supports the minimum wage, supports tackling child poverty and pensioner poverty and has got three million people in jobs; and a Conservative Party that would go for £10 billion worth of tax cuts, the priority going to stamp duty on shares and not the poorest in the country."

More clunking than punching, one could say.

Years of slugging it out in the debating chambers of Eton means that Cameron excels at schoolboy-style teasing.

Brown's initial fightback was strong. He pointed out the Tories' position on the abolition of the 10p rate had the consistency of quicksand (in duller terms, of course). Even Nick Clegg, whose voice is sometimes inaudible as he stands neither far enough to the left, nor the right (a typical Liberal Democrat affliction) appeared to show gravitas in comparison, asking where were the Labour MPs last year when they had rubber-stamped the Budget?

A rattled Brown stumbled his way through most of the session. He spoke of the "ten spence" rate. And he bragged about lifting nearly a million children out of poverty. According to government figures, it is 600,000. Then again, a decade as Chancellor must hone creative accounting skills, if not leadership ones.

Cameron then used the words of Labour rebels to tease him further: "The Labour peer Lord Desai said your leadership style is like 'porridge'. Another week like this and it will be Cheerios!"

Another PMQs like that, and indeed Brown may be Ready for a Brek.

Gerri Peev

Forced to eat humble pie

WHEN Gordon Brown came to power, he famously promised to listen and learn. Now, after weeks of denying that more than a few MPs had problems with his decision to scrap the 10p tax rate, he has had to do just that.

But the watering down of his proposal has been seized on by opponents as a sign of weakness.

Faced with the choice of eating humble pie or risking a rebellion which would have seen his own Budget voted down, along with his authority, the Prime Minister chose the former.

The most damaging aspect of the 10p tax row for Mr Brown has been the doorstep perception that it affects everyone just days before important local elections south of the Border.

Labour rebel Frank Field said the climbdown marked the start of "phase two" of Gordon Brown's premiership. He had become a "listening Prime Minister".

Mr Brown will have to show he can straddle the fine line between listening, learning and leading.