Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband chose one of his medleys of things that have gone wrong for today's Prime Minister's Questions. There were plenty of those to choose from, and the Labour leader started with the almighty row in the Tory party over the European Arrest Warrant. He accused David Cameron of delaying the vote because of the Rochester and Strood by-election, and offered the Prime Minister next week's Opposition Day debate to hold it, where he said Labour would support him to get the measure through. Cameron was having none of that, though, and pledged that the vote would be held before Rochester. He claimed Miliband's questions had collapsed.

Privately, the Conservatives are probably not particularly surprised about the demise of Bob Neill's EU referendum bill, this time at the hands of the Liberal Democrats. It was always a Downing Street ruse to help quell backbench rebellion and senior Tories have ever since viewed the progress both of this bill and its predecessor, led by James Wharton, as an opportunity to cheer up the backbenches with bacon butty breakfasts and so on. Of course, it had a political point, now well proven, which was that only the the Conservatives want to let Britain decide its continued membership of the EU. That both Labour and the Lib Dems have blocked the bills now helps the Conservatives make that point on the doorstep.

Before the by-election battle with Ukip in Rochester that Westminster is rather obsessed with, there's another chance for Nigel Farage's party to cause a political earthquake. Tomorrow, voters in South Yorkshire will go to the polls to elect a new police and crime commissioner to replace Shaun Wright, who eventually resigned after the Rotherham child abuse scandal. Ukip is fighting a vigorous campaign in this PCC election, launching posters at the weekend that read 'there are 1,400 reasons why you should not trust Labour again', with a picture of a teenage girl on them. The party's candidate Jack Clarkson does have a good chance of winning the seat from Labour, which will cause serious jitters.

The main business of the day in the House of Commons is Labour's debate on Lord Freud, a row that blew up nearly a fortnight ago. The party's motion, entitled 'Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Welfare Reform and disabled people', finishes with '. . . this House has no confidence in the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform; and calls on the Prime Minister to dismiss him.' It's not a wise move to put any money on David Cameron meeting this demand, given that Freud apologised on the same day his comments about disabled people and the minimum wage were raised at Prime Minister's Questions. Unless you've got a lot of time on your hands, it might not be wise to sit through the entire debate, both sides of which can be summarised in these three points: 1.

What's next for David Cameron's tussle with Brussels? The Prime Minister made clear yesterday that 'we are not paying a sum anything like' the £1.7 billion demanded by the European Commission last week, and now the focus is on how much he can get the bill reduced by. He will have to pay a bill, but to maintain credibility, the Prime Minister must end up paying something much smaller than the original demand. Next week George Osborne and other European finance ministers will hold emergency talks on the bill, and today Number 10 set out what the Chancellor plans to say at those talks.

Today's Independent explains why the Tory party is starting to get rather jitter again. Sure, Labour has fallen five points to level-peg with the party in a ComRes poll for the paper, with both on 30 per cent, but as Mike Smithson points out, the party could still be losing seats to the Opposition even if it secures a 6 per cent lead. But the poll also has Ukip on 19 per cent after the shock bill from Brussels. As I reported yesterday, MPs were already picking up on voter concern about this on the doorstep - and a poll for the Times found most voters through he would pay up in the end anyway. Labour won't be particularly buoyed by the poll either, though Douglas Alexander has warned his party that it will see these sorts of figures in an era of four-party politics.

The House of Commons is in a febrile, nervy mood this afternoon. No-one is quite happy with anyone else. David Cameron raised a cheer when he told MPs that he will not pay the €2bn bill apparently sprung on him by the European Commission, but he had very little to say when pressed by Labour on how this surprise was quite so surprising given Treasury ministers were mentioning it in letters months ago. Ken Clarke made backbenchers glower and opposition MPs howl with glee when he told the Chamber he sympathised with the Prime Minister for being surprised by something everyone in the Foreign Office and Treasury had known about for months. Just to endear himself to the members around him, Clarke also defended the European Arrest Warrant.

It's been a while since David Cameron had to give such a difficult feedback statement to the House of Commons after a European summit. Even his last tricky address, on his failure to block Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, could at least be spun as the Prime Minister valiantly standing up for the right principle. But at this afternoon's session in the Commons, the Prime Minister will face complaints from MPs not just about how impossible Europe is but about how some parts of the Westminster machine knew about the so-called unexpected bill but others did not. So the questions Cameron will face will be: can you avoid paying this bill? Who can we blame, not just for the original situation, but the fact that officials apparently failed to pass the information on?