Pmqs

With the prime minister abroad flogging jets to tyrants, Nick Clegg was left to play the statesman at PMQs. He was opposed by Labour’s Harriet Harman. Once a plucky and hard-working performer, Harman is now entering her Elvis-in-Vegas phase. She can remember the words but can’t find the feeling. She accused the Lib Dem leader of various atrocities. Sacking policemen. Doing the dirty on tuition fees. Vandalising the Surestart scheme. Nobbling mums with extra taxes. But her meandering phrases were so vaguely scripted, and so feebly delivered, that she might as well have stitched them into a sewing sampler. Clegg had all the time in the world to sharpen up

Ed Miliband had fun with his dressing-up box today. At PMQs he tried on all kinds of disguises in the hope of scaring the government. First Europe and the EU budget negotiations. Miliband’s approach here is full of cunning and dishonesty. He called for ‘real terms reduction’ even though he knows full well that a freeze is the best the government can hope for. But by suggesting an impossible tactic he can claim that David Cameron has missed a trick. ‘Rank opportunism,’ declared the PM, ‘and the country will see through it.’ He reminded us of Labour’s record at the negotiating table seven years ago. Back then Ed Milband and

David Cameron’s taunt at Ed Miliband yesterday during Prime Minister’s questions that the ‘good news will keep coming’ was taken by some as a hint at today’s GDP figures, which the PM has early access to. Now the chair of the UK Statistics Authority Andrew Dilnot has written to Cameron to rebuke him for the line. The letter, which you can read in full here, says: ‘The Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008 states that recipients of pre-release access must not disclose ‘any suggestion of the size or direction of any trend’ indicated by the statistic to which the recipient has been given such access. It is clear from

Goodness, he’s enjoying himself. Ed Miliband is brimful of confidence these days and he handles himself like a master juggler at PMQs. He flicks out deft gags and acerbic asides while keeping the central question in the air. He’s having fun. And it’s a pleasure to watch. Greatly helpful to him is the government’s pledge to deliver at least one major and one minor cock-up every week. Last Wednesday it was Cameron’s improvised announcement that energy companies must give customers the lowest tariff. Today he tried to explain this. ‘There were 400 different energy tariffs last year,’ the PM told the Commons. ‘That’s totally baffling.’ ‘The only people baffled,’ said

It was a question of when not if. Today’s PMQs was always going to turn into a kangaroo inquiry into Andrew Mitchell. The man who said ‘pleb’ was in full view on the front bench but he looked as if he were sitting in the Number One dock at the Old Bailey. Ed Miliband started by asking the PM about joblessness which – unhappily for Labour – has fallen. He attacked Cameron for failing to tackle long-term youth unemployment and Cameron countered by pointing out that the number of kids on the dole had doubled during Labour’s last two years in power. They tussled for a few moments over the

Butch? What the hell does it mean? At the last session of Prime Minister’s Questions, Cameron boasted rather rashly that he was ‘butch’. Today Chris Bryant  used it again when he accused the prime minister of anti-female prejudice in the recent reshuffle. ‘He described himself as butch last week,’ said Bryant. ‘Just what is his problem with women?’ Ed Miliband added to the attack and dubbed the prime minister, ‘Mr Butch.’ The word is out-dated but full of flavour and it carries hints of campness and homoeroticism. And perhaps a dash of homophobia too. But it doesn’t pack enough semantic value to have any traction as an insult. Hostilities remained

Broom broom. That was the noise that PMQs made today. Britain’s ebullient car sector is the only sliver of happiness the government can glean from our wimpering, faltering, flat-lining economy. And Cameron brought up the broom-brooms as soon as he possibly could. First he had to deal with Ed Miliband who started the session with one of those casual, chatty questions which are designed to make the PM look like a berk by quoting his words back to his face. ‘After two and half years in government,’ Ed began, ‘the PM returned from his break and said he now realises it’s time to cut through the dither. What did he

Ed Miliband is at his best when at his quietest. He began Prime Minister’s Questions today by repeating a question put to David Cameron shortly before the last election. ‘Why do you want to be Prime Minister?’ Cameron had replied: ‘Because I think I’d be good at it.’ Great surges of Labour mirth greeted that quotation. When the noise died away, Miliband turned to the Prime Minister politely. ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ Cameron was like a man facing the downdraft of a helicopter. But he weathered the onslaught and responded forcefully with a list of government achievements. Two million taken out of tax. A cap on benefits, immigration