Last week it was seven. This morning it stood at nine. By the end of PMQs it had climbed to 12. The statistic everyone is yawning about is the number of shimmies Ed Miliband has performed while failing to admit that he once vowed to ‘weaponise’ the NHS.
The only source for Ed’s gangster talk, Nick Robinson, is regarded as infallible. This is helpful to Cameron who has turned a complete non-issue into an astonishingly useful defence.
Miliband was cruising for victory today. An easy win and a lap of honour. He came to the chamber with an archive of 29 NHS facilities which David Cameron had vowed to protect during the 2010 election. The Tory leader posed for souvenir photos in front of these threatened shrines, and promised ‘a bare-knuckle fight’ to any bailiff or bull-dozer that dared take him on. All 29 have now closed. Deeply embarrassing for the PM.
But Cameron refused to play ball. After question one he flung away his racquet, scuffed up the white lines and announced a completely new recreation.
Deny the gaffe.
He said weaponise was a ‘disgraceful remark. He demanded that Miliband ‘get up and apologise’ And only then would he be prepared to ‘take the debate forward.’
A true gamesman, (or cheat if you prefer), he had broken the soft rule that a prime minister may not interrogate his opponent. Miliband, hardly a genius at improvisation, plugged away at his pre-arranged assault and recited a litany of hospitals that Dave the Redeemer had failed to protect from oblivion.
But the cloud of shame never descended. Cameron stood up again and reiterated his demand that Miliband grovel for uttering the w-word. He was up to Gas Mark 5 with indignation, and his pudgy cheeks began to flush pink like raw steak. Seasoned observers were tempted to suspect him of sincerity. Almost.
Miliband responded with a new w-word. Two in fact. ‘War on Wales’. He accused the PM of opening a campaign against the principality by using Cardiff’s underinvestment in the health service as ‘political propaganda.’
Cameron pointed out that Miliband himself recently admitted comparing their problems was legitimate.
Certainly the Wales v England match has brought much-needed competition to the health service. Cardiff is going down to a heavy defeat. The Welsh borders are chocka with queasy Taffs and off-colour Dais fleeing their doctors in terror. But England loses too as its wards silt up with wheezing refugees from the valleys.
Cameron’s charlatanism served him well today and he quit the chamber in pretty good shape. A former coalition prime minister, Lloyd George, liked to ponder the ethics of deception.
‘To do it wouldn’t be cricket,’ he said. ‘Not to do it wouldn’t be politics.’
So Cam is bound to keep the w-word in play. Not least because Miliband has own-goaled it by accepting the PM’s ludicrous assessment that ‘weaponise’ is blasphemy.
Labour’s best response would be the ‘I’m Spartacus’ manouevre. Spend a week repeating ‘weaponise’ whenever the NHS is mentioned. And blame the bungling PM for forcing them to use ugly language in defence of the sick.
Simple and effective.
Sadly, these are two concepts Team Miliband have never grasped.
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