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Did Cameron break the law at PMQs?

October 24, 2012 1:11 pm

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The government receive growth figures from the ONS at 9.30am the day before they are released to the public. So David Cameron already knows what tomorrow’s growth figures will reveal. They’re widely believed to show the economy coming out of recession – which Cameron himself seemed to allude to at PMQs today – as Times Political Editor Roland Watson notes:

The government are not meant to give any indication of what is in the GDP figures…

Update: Former Bank of England MPC member Danny Blanchflower gets in touch to say:

Update: Here’s what a Tory policy document said about crime stats before the election. Should this not also apply to the GDP figures?

 “We will abolish pre-release access that Ministers, officials and special advisors have to crime statistics, so that they will no longer get more advance notice of the contents of statistical publications than the public, the press or Opposition MPs.” (our emphasis)

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  • AlanGiles

    “Cameron already knows what tomorrow’s growth figures will reveal.
    They’re widely believed to show the economy coming out of recession”

    You sound almost disappointed!

    Surely after the terrible days and months – the misery that has been caused to ordinary people, especially the poor, we should be glad about this?

    • trotters1957

      Ir would be good news if it represented a real improvement in the state of the economy. It doesn’t. It’s a blip as a result of an extra bank holiday and the Olympic games.
      We will be in a triple recession come January 2013, something never achieved before by any Chancellor.

    • aracataca

       The annual growth rate will remain negative and it was government policies that led to the double dip in the first place. What’s there to be glad about? 
       Some people on here have suggested that you’re a Tory troll. Any suggestion is, and must remain, pure speculation.

      • AlanGiles

        “Some people on here have suggested that you’re a Tory troll.”

        And some people, Bill have suggested that you see yourself as a prospective candidate in Cambridgeshire. That such a rancorous, mischevious,  trouble-making, stirrer who has used three screen names on this one site, that, too must be pure speculation.

        Could anybody take you seriously?. You don’t even seem to grasp simple concepts about not being able to be in two places at the one time. Even when it is explained to you in words of one syllable on four seperate occassions.

        As for the matter in hand, any improvement in the dire situation this country has been is should be welcomed to make life just a bit easier, or at least to give people hope. You appear to be so tribal, I get the impression that you would rather we remained in recession just to help your personal political ambitions.

        Go and find somebody else to annoy Bill.

        • jaime taurosangastre candelas

          Alan,

          I don’t think you are a tory troll.  Many would make that accusation of me, despite me not ever voting tory or thinking about it.  But from the perspective of any Labour tribalist, you – to the left – and me to the slightly right of Labour orthodoxy must seem like interlopers.

          • aracataca

            Yeah-he’s so left wing he thinks we should be glad that we have a margin of error measurement of growth after the Tories have given us a double dip recession -the first double dip in 40 years. 

          • aracataca

            Yeah-he’s so left wing he thinks we should be glad that we have a margin of error measurement of growth after the Tories have given us a double dip recession -the first double dip in 40 years. 

          • aracataca

            Yeah-he’s so left wing he thinks we should be glad that we have a margin of error measurement of growth after the Tories have given us a double dip recession -the first double dip in 40 years. 

          • aracataca

            Yeah-he’s so left wing he thinks we should be glad that we have a margin of error measurement of growth after the Tories have given us a double dip recession -the first double dip in 40 years. 

          • aracataca

            Yeah-he’s so left wing he thinks we should be glad that we have a margin of error measurement of growth after the Tories have given us a double dip recession -the first double dip in 40 years. 

          • aracataca

            Yeah-he’s so left wing he thinks we should be glad that we have a margin of error measurement of growth after the Tories have given us a double dip recession -the first double dip in 40 years. 

          • aracataca

            Yeah-he’s so left wing he thinks we should be glad that we have a margin of error measurement of growth after the Tories have given us a double dip recession -the first double dip in 40 years. 

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David

            By that logic did we only have a “margin of error” recession?

          • AlanGiles

            Thanks Jaime.  Like you I have never voted Tory. I think the problem for people like Bill is that it is easier to call anybody a Tory, if they dare to suggest that not everything Labour do is wonderful,  than to think for themselves. So last week I agreed with Mrs May over the MacKinnon case rather  than reactionary old Alan Johnson. That makes me a Tory, but if some of these tribalists thought, just for a minute, they would realise that they themselves are nearer to the dreaded Tories than I am.

            For example I have constantly spoken out against the Freud welfare reforms – so do the tribalists – NOW – now that it is Duncan Smith in charge of implementing them. They seem to forget that it was Labour who first implemented Freud, and they were quite happy to support the minister responsible at the time (Purnell) – some of the poor souls would even like him back.

            But I despair of Bill (“William” or “aracataca” or “W.O’Connor” or whatever name he chooses next). He just enjoys getting out his wooden spoon, even if he makes himself look a bit silly in the process.

        • John Reid

          Treborc ,use
          to tell people I’d been a tory, which was completely untrue, But you’ve
          suggested I leave labour Alan, yet you’re not prepared to rejoin and put the
          work in, If I did leave labour as you suggest would you come in and do all the
          work I do locally

  • goodybags

    Here here Alan and very well put!
    In any event a a statement “the good news keeps coming” could arguably have absolutely no bearing on the GDP figures at all.  If this is the only way for labour to get excited then they really need to get out more!

    Only they can spin it that if the GDP figures just happen to be good news then the PM  ’has broken the law’.  Indeed he may have been referring to any fiscal/business/economic or indeed MP pay-rise issues.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/Dan.Filson Daniel Filson

    This reminds me of Iain McLeod, as Tory Shadow Chancellor, at the weekend before the 1970 General Election “forecasting” what the trade figures due shortly would say. They would be BAD, he said, and he was right (though it was a blip caused by some jumbo jet imports). Because he had been tipped off. Cameron should not make too much of coming out of recession, given the extremely narrow margin by which this has been achieved (within the margin for possible correction in one month time).

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  • DavePostles

    It makes no difference whether he used the information prematurely or not. The newspapers have reported the expectation of 0.6-0.8 increase for over a week. The real issue is that any improvement has been largely confined to the SE (Olympics) and has not improved the position of the rest of the country (apart from the extra day over the last quarter – ‘Jubilee’).

  • Hugh

    So, have we heard from the head of the ONS, then? 

  • MrSauce

    Maybe he just read Stephanie Fanders’ blog:-
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20010011

  • AlanGiles

    No I wouldn’t John because it has become a different party to the one I was a member of for so many years – it just  doesn’t exist any more. It has lost men and women of principles and in it’s place we have (in the main) young, inexperienced lickspittles who will toe the party line no matter what. We lose the likes of Bob Marshall-Andrews, who could think for himself, and we have to replace him, timerous little yes-men (and women) who are so desperate to expediate their careers they don’t really oppose the worst excesses of the Conservative/LibDem coalition (I direct you to the story in today’s Standard with the latest pusillanimous posturing of Liam Byrne in response to the dreadful Duncan-Smith’s proposed welfare cuts).

    The problem with Labour is now they are so anxious to not frighten the horses that they have lost credibility and respect.

    You wouldn’t leave Labour, because you rather like the cosy little right-wing that now controls it. There is no room in the party for both of us – God knows you have had enough to say about anyone even vaguely to the left (where we are supposed to be), and you constantly try to evoke the 1980s for your justification.

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