Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Electoral Commission Committee – in the House of Commons at 2:15 pm on 22 June 2010.

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Photo of Malcolm Bruce Malcolm Bruce Chair, International Development Committee, Chair, International Development Committee 2:15, 22 June 2010

No.

Confidence and supply gives the minority Government the freedom and the party providing the confidence and supply the responsibility, and that does not seem to be a good deal. Coalition gives both parties the opportunity to be full playing partners, to inject their own ideas, policies and people and to strike sparks off each other in ways that they could not if the situation were different. Over the past seven weeks, I have been really pleasantly surprised by how many sparks have been provided and by how rigorously a flame of reform has been blown into life as a result of the coalition.

When the Leader of the Opposition reflects on the intemperate tone of her response, she will understand that the people will say, "Those in Labour are substantially responsible for the situation in which the country finds itself, they are in total denial and they have not offered an apology or an explanation of anything that they would do." Right now, they should just go away, have a leadership competition and let the rest of us get on with running the country and getting it out of the mess in which they left it.