Cameron and his citing of OECD and IMF, among others

[steve2470]

When I watch PMQ, Cameron relentlessly quotes the IMF, OECD and the Bank of England to justify his austerity measures. Have I missed Labor and the other opposition parties bringing forth evidence in PMQ to counter the IMF, OECD and Bank of England ? Thanks for your patience with this Yank's question :)

[fedsron2us]

1. Cameron 's background is PR

He does not have much experience in developing plans and then implementing them. The PM is therefore happy for the IMF, OECD or BOE to provide most of the intellectual props for him. He then just tries to sell these ideas like soap powder. This is why he is still plugging away touting austerity even though the signs are that these policies are causing the UK economy to go back into recession.

There is no meaningful criticism of this position from the Liberal Democrats as they are welded into the Coalition and can not escape without risking a General Election and the inevitable political oblivion it will bring at the polls.

Miliband and Balls have been busy pointing out that most of Cameron's 'medicine' is killing the patient but they are hampered by the fact that many of the public still blame the last Labour government for letting public and private borrowing getting out of hand in the first place. There is also the issue that far too many Labour politicians still buy into the insane neo liberal thinking that got us and most of the western world into this mess. As a result British Parliamentary politics is really drifting listlessly at the moment waiting for events elsewhere to drive it. In fact the biggest threat at the moment to Cameron comes not from his Liberal Democrat coalition partners or the Labour Party but from his own Conservative back benchers who are likely to hold his feet to the fire if he is seen as 'selling out Britain' in any rewriting of EU treaties.

[T_i_B]

2. As Benjamin Disraeli once said....

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Labour will also use stats from OECD and the like to counter government arguments, but with a very different spin on them.

One other thing to watch out for is dodgy research from astroturf groups such as the Taxpayers Alliance. there are a number of such groups who purport to be independent but are in reality nothing of the sort, and the research such groups come out with may provide fill column inches for the likes of the Daily Express but is highly unreliable to say the least.

[tjwmason]

3. The point about astro-turf needs to be made frequently

The Taxpayers Alliance is an excellent example, so too Migration Watch.

The other one, whose name I forget recently came out with a report showing how terrible the N.H.S. is - a quick look at their web-site showed that the 'independent research' body is funded by the health insurance industry.

There are significant and respectable think-tanks on both sides of the political divide, but one should always look at the source of any numbers.

[LeftishBrit]

4. All good points

I call the Taxpayers Alliance the Tax Avoiders Alliance.

Several other misleadingly neutral names, e.g. Policy Exchange for a blatantly right-wing thing-tank.

But my favourite name is Centre for Social Justice, which is run by Iain Duncan Smith!