PMQs row over Baby P
- 12 Nov 08, 04:40 PM
A baby dies gruesomely, avoidably and in circumstances which people had dared to hope could never happen again. The speaker of the Commons is forced to intervene to calm tempers after the prime minister and the leader of the opposition engage in an angry clash. "Good grief" will, no doubt, be the reaction of many and "a plague on both their houses"
However, as the heat subsides a little, what light does today's PMQs exchange shine on the policy issues and the political positions of the two men?
David Cameron suggested that the Haringey inquiry into what went wrong was "completely unacceptable" since it was "being led by Mrs Shoesmith, who is the council's own director of children's services". Repeatedly he asked Gordon Brown, "Do you agree with me that she cannot possibly investigate the failure of her own department?"
The prime minister did not answer that question. He simply explained that the government was considering the local "serious case review" into what had gone wrong and Lord Laming - who carried out the Victoria Climbie inquiry - was looking at social service protection for children in every part of the country.
The problem arises because the director of children's services in Haringey is also the head of the Local Safeguarding Children Board which commissioned the report into the failures which led to Baby P's death. Whitehall guidelines state that "any report must be commissioned from a person who is independent of the agencies/professionals involved". It doesn't state that any report should be commissioned by someone independent. A statement is due from the children's secretary which I suspect will set up an independent enquiry.
What then of the politics?
Today's row was triggered by Gordon Brown accusing David Cameron of making a "party political" issue of the tragedy.
It's clear that David Cameron was much keener to talk about this case rather than about the topic pretty much everyone expected him to raise - the economy. Before PMQs began, he had written a piece for the London Evening Standard which they'd splashed on their front page. This may have been because he felt passionately about it. It may also have been because he wanted to avoid a debate about taxes and the case for a fiscal stimulus - a view that would have been reinforced by today's comments by the governor of the Bank of England which posed some very awkward questions for the Tories (see my earlier blog).
What's also clear is that Labour backbenchers were relishing the prospect of a political punch-up on the economy. That's why they shouted when the Tory leader chose another subject. That, perhaps, is what was in the prime minister's mind when he suggested that Cameron was playing politics.
My immediate reaction on the Daily Politics on BBC2 was to say that the prime minister had shown a "political tone-deafness" to the mood outside Westminster and that Mr Cameron probably could not believe his "political luck" that he managed to avoid talking about the economy. Labour's John Cruddas and the Lib Dems' Charles Kennedy - who were in the studio with me - agreed. Interestingly, some who were watching in the Commons gallery did not. They thought the Tory leader's visible loss of temper showed him in a very poor light.
Of course, beyond the Westminster village the public will demand that this story does not become a he says/she says row like those over Jennifer's ear or Rose Addis. If you don't remember them, don't worry. That makes my point.
UPDATE: 17:50: Things are moving fast.
No sooner had Gordon Brown defended the Haringey enquiry into the death of Baby P as "independently compiled and independently assessed" than Ed Balls appears to have ordered a review of the review. Ofsted, the Comission for Health Care Audit and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary will review Haringey Children's Services and report within a fortnight.
If it shows evidence of management failures Mr Balls has the power to take over the running of Children's Services in the borough - effectively replacing the entire management team. He does not have the power to sack individual staff.
