Caroline Flint and Ed Davey clash over who cares most about consumers

One of the Conservatives’ great victories in government has been to portray the party as on the side of consumers against behemoth and sometimes inefficient producers. Take education, where Michael Gove has set to tackling the ‘Blob’ of the education establishment on behalf of parents who want real choice over their children’s education. Or the NHS, where Jeremy Hunt has styled himself as the patients’ champion, standing up to a resistant NHS establishment on standards of care.

But this isn’t the case on every front. Today’s Commons statement on energy bills by Ed Davey underlined the struggle the Coalition faces in presenting a convincing case for being a consumer champion when it comes to the cost of living. Davey is a Lib Dem, but it is scarcely fair to blame him for this, as he has been largely ineffectual in the talks over the government’s response to Labour’s energy bills campaign.