Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Miliband delivers for once, but Cameron’s left unharmed

Incredible events in the chamber today. An absolute sensation at PMQS. For the first time since last summer, Ed Miliband got through the session without triggering talk of a leadership crisis. There was gloomy news aplenty to dwell on. Debts soaring; growth flat-lining; dole queues snaking back through blighted high streets and bankrupt business parks.

The Labour leader chose to wallop Cameron with a well-prepared attack on the NHS. Quoting the prime minister’s vow, ‘to take our nurses and doctors with us’, he asked why the government had stopped listening. The prime minister’s reply was frivolous and desperate. He giggled and smirked like a teenager at the despatch box and tried to make light of his loathed policy. ‘When it comes to the NHS you should always expect a second opinion,’ he quipped. An early diagnosis of that gag — ‘no pulse’ — should have prevented it from ever reaching the house. Blithely, Cameron informed us that thousands of doctors supported his policy although he was able quote only one of them. Anonymously too. This mystery medic, said the Prime Minister, had ‘once been acting chair of a local GP group in Doncaster!’ Hearing the name of Miliband’s constituency, the jubilant Tories cried out in resounding echoes. ‘Ah, in Doncaster. Ooh, Doncaster! Ah! Ooh Doncaster. Umm! Ooh!’ as if Mr Miliband had been caught opening an off-shore account named after his dog. The prime minister read the testimony of his solitary supergrass. ‘Being one of the pathfinder areas is a real boost for Doncaster.’

Miliband fired back. ‘How out of touch is he about what is happening in the NHS? The latest survey from the Royal College of GPs says that says 98 per cent want to end the reforms.’

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