This time last week, you would have expected PMQs to be rowdy and extremely difficult for David Cameron. After all, he was on the back foot on tax and steel. But today’s session was actually remarkably dry as Jeremy Corbyn asked worthy and technical questions on tax and Britain’s overseas territories. Strikingly, Cameron felt confident enough to repeatedly mock Corbyn over his tax return, which was submitted late.
Cameron will, I suspect, be relieved that the tax debate is now one of policy detail. Not only does it take the personal sting out of the issue, but it makes it harder for it to continue to command public attention—I feel for the person who has to clip today’s exchanges for the nightly news.
The question that silenced the House, though, came from Andrew Griffiths. He asked about the failure of social services in the death of Ayeeshia Jane Smith and why the serious case review into it would not be fully independent. Griffiths is making a very important argument here: serious case reviews need to be properly rigorous and fully independent if the state is to do what it can to prevent future tragedies.
One other exchange stood out today. Jacob Rees-Mogg asked Cameron a question about EU free movement and whether the government’s referendum leaflet was misleading. Cameron then answered an entirely different question, about refugees coming to the UK. To compound this error, Cameron then accused those supporting Brexit of ‘scaremongering’. His behaviour today won’t move votes in the referendum but will make it that much harder to reunite the Tory party after this referendum.
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