Cameron pans PM "smokescreen"
David Cameron accuses Gordon Brown of "smokescreen" over government scandals
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Wednesday, 09, Jan 2008 02:44
David Cameron has used the first prime minister's questions of the year to criticise Gordon Brown's long-term plans.
He said ambitious proposals to reform the NHS, unveiled earlier this week, represented part of a government "smokescreen" to mask a string of scandals at the end of last year.
The Conservative party leader accused Mr Brown of being a prime minister who "lost everyone's identities, [has] seen a run on [Northern Rock] and got his ministers rocked from one funding scandal to another".
"He can talk about long-termism all he likes but everybody knows it's just a smokescreen for the short-term mess that he's made," he added.
But the prime minister, who is bidding to reverse a trend of faltering opinion poll support, reiterated his interest in the "big challenges" of government.
"Nobody knows what [Mr Cameron] thinks about the big challenges; not the country, not his party and probably not even himself," he said.
Today also saw Nick Clegg make his first appearance at prime minister's questions as leader of the Liberal Democrats.
While he opted to quiz the prime minister on fuel poverty rather than criticise him, Mr Cameron found time to comment that Mr Clegg was the fourth Lib Dem leader he had faced since being elevated to Tory party HQ in 2005.
"I am relieved it is no longer my party that has got this habit of replacing its leader on quite such a regular basis," the Tory leader said.
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