Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Dave’s rave

Friskier than a spaniel. That’s how Cameron seemed at today’s PMQs. The Gadaffi debacle has given him a Falklands bounce – prematurely one senses – and he was glowing like freshly made toast from the praise lavished on his performance on Monday. He seemed to want to share the good cheer with everyone else, even his opponents, and he offered thanks to Ed Miliband for his contribution, ‘which I thought was extremely powerful.’

Miliband sensed that attacking Cameron today would be like serving a writ on a man at his birthday party. He tried to pester the PM for ‘removing the mobility element from DLA’ but Cameron cut him down glibly. ‘The short answer is we haven’t,’ he said. They then tussled fitfully, and fruitlessly, over the wording of Clause 83 in the welfare reform bill. Cameron brought the discussion to a close by facetiously asking Miliband to congratulate the government on its readiness to listen to advice from all quarters.

After that – back to the jokes. The MP for Croydon, Gavin Barwell, asked about locating government operations in less expensive quarters than SW1 and Cameron mused on the prospect of ripping IPSA from its cosy Westminster eyrie and dropping it onto the concrete belt of outer London. When David Amess asked the him to endorse Low Salt Week, Cameron pondered aloud whether ‘the last prime minister put salt in his porridge.’ In answer to a premeditated question from Matthew Hancock about the waste written into Labour’s PFI agreements, Cameron wheeled out his best Labour chum, John Healey, the shadow health secretary. Healey always seems to bring solace to the coalition and he was quoted two days ago complaining that, ‘we were poor at PFI, and poor at negotiating PFI contracts.’

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in