Sigh, this is the reason Labour is so unpopular

Labour is unpopular. There is the obvious reason of why this is; that their policies have caused many of the problems in society - whether the lack of trust between citizens and the government, the enormous deficit and the deterioration of health, police and education services. But there is another reason - one that often plays worse with the public than the policy failures. Arrogance.

At Prime Ministers Questions yesterday, Gordon Brown had a very good day. He got a few good whacks on the Conservatives, disdainfully put down the Lib Dems, and cheered his own side considerably. Cameron also had a very poor day, which further helped. However, because of the arrogance of the government this has already been forgotten in yet another stupid own-goal. During an answer to David Cameron, Gordon Brown claimed Britain was not the only country in the G-20 to still be in recession - Spain was still in recession. The only problem is that Spain is not a direct member of the G-20. Now, in PMQ's a Prime Minister does not know what the Leader of the Opposition will ask him, so it is forgiveable that he might get one fact wrong sometimes. I mean, Spain is not a direct member of the G-20, but it IS a member of the EU (which is a member), and is also an observer. Gordon could be forgiven for getting that wrong in the middle of unscripted debate in the bearpit of the House of Commons. Most politics watchers (and members of the public) would willingly accept this explanation.

However, in an absolutely breath-taking display of hubris, the government has argued today that Brown was completely correct. There is no real justification for this claim. It is pretty obvious that any claim to the PM being correct is disingenuous. So now, after putting some runs on the board yesterday, the Government has stupidly hit its own wicket and now the story around the papers and the blogs isn't "Didn't Gordon do well yesterday", which played nicely into a general story of Labour recovery after a couple of improving polls. Nope, now that story is "Is Spain a member of the G-20, and was Gordon being disingenuous or just ignorant when he claimed they were?" For the love of anything, just suck it up, accept you made a mistake, and move on - it shouldn't be this big a deal!