PMQs today was not as noisy an affair as last week. But the opening exchanges between David Cameron and Ed Miliband still had plenty of needle in them: things are becoming increasingly personal between these two.
The Cameron/Miliband exchanges were initially relatively even. I noticed a fair few Tory backbenchers having to stifle a laugh at Miliband’s line that Cameron was the Prime Minister for ‘Benson and Hedge funds’. His attack on Cameron’s ‘weasel words’ about whether or not Lynton Crosby had spoken to him about plain packaging, combined with Labour’s call for an inquiry by the Cabinet Secretary, will keep this story going. But Cameron’s last line that ‘every day this country is getting stronger and he is getting weaker’ was clearly designed to play on Labour concerns about what happens to their poll position as the economy improves.
The Labour backbenches were again primed to ask about Lynton Crosby and Tory donations. But a cocky Cameron turned everyone of these questions into an opportunity to have a pop at Labour’s links to the unions. Interestingly, John Bercow didn’t cut Cameron off this time — despite some imploring glances at the Speaker’s Chair from the Labour front bench.
Cameron clearly worries that the news about Abu Qatada finally being deported might have got lost amid Andy Murray’s Wimbledon triumph. He brought it up at every opportunity. He also tried to give life to the story at the weekend that Labour is considering extending the human rights act to social and economic rights, declaring ‘they want to make welfare a human right’.
As the session went on, Cameron got more and more confident. He seemed eager to send his MPs back to their constituencies for recess in good spirits.
At Westminster it feels like the tide is flowing the Tories’ way. But we’ll have to see whether the polls begin to consistently reflect this. At the moment, Labour is still leading relatively comfortably in most of them.
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