Pmqs

Ed Miliband chose one of his medleys of things that have gone wrong for today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. There were plenty of those to choose from, and the Labour leader started with the almighty row in the Tory party over the European Arrest Warrant. He accused David Cameron of delaying the vote because of the Rochester and Strood by-election, and offered the Prime Minister next week’s Opposition Day debate to hold it, where he said Labour would support him to get the measure through. Cameron was having none of that, though, and pledged that the vote would be held before Rochester. He claimed Miliband’s questions had collapsed. listen to ‘PMQs:

It didn’t work. But it was a good idea. David Cameron prepared an ambush for Ed Miliband at PMQs today. The trouble was he attacked the Labour leader for a vice he himself has mastered with conspicuous aplomb: question dodging. Miliband is clearly in trouble. He’s using his only remaining strength, the NHS, to prop up his burgeoning weaknesses. Expect this to continue till next May. There’s always a calamity somewhere in the NHS and for Miliband, ill tidings are like gold dust. He painted a picture of a basket-case health system that would have shamed a failed state in the Middle Ages. Cameron, he said, wasted billions on a

It was like the last night of the Proms at PMQs. Miliband stood up to hearty roars—Tory roars—that seemed to go on for minutes. This was the longest and most humiliating ovation of his life. But his throat had been hit by a lurgy and his voice was rasping like a misfiring chainsaw. This impairment made him a less tasty target. It took the fun out of the fight. Still, Cameron had a pop. ‘If he gets a doctor’s appointment we do hope he doesn’t forget it.’ Miliband flashed back. ‘He noticed that I lost a couple of paragraphs in my speech. Since we last met he’s lost a couple

Weird times in Westminster. PMQs was downgraded today so that the evening news wouldn’t carry pictures of a remote House of Commons debating the referendum in a complacent and uncaring manner. Passion is today’s watchword. Urgency too. And the personal touch. The party leaders are up north, right now, engaged in a three-legged race to lose the union. Possibly they’ll fail and save it instead. If so, it’ll be an accident. Down here, MPs offered a show of unity. Unfortunately this created the very impression they were hoping to avoid: a crew of smug southern cronies chatting away on comfy leather upholstery, many hundreds of miles from the front line.

Calamities crowd in every side. Nuclear-armed Russia is already waging war with Europe, according to our NATO ally, Lithuania. At home, Douglas Carswell’s defection threatens to rob the Tories of power. Yet these crises were barely mentioned at PMQs. One source of international conflict has been resolved, at last. Is the name Islamic State? Or is it ISIS? Or is it IS? Or is it Isil? Isil it is. Both leaders used that term today as they condemned the latest savageries. Cameron made a vague attempt at karaoke Churchill. And no one particularly minded that it wasn’t up to much. ‘A country like ours will not be cowed by these

Ed Miliband has suggested that there be a public version of Prime Minister’s Questions. This courageous idea makes Mr S want Miliband to be prime minister. What would you ask him?  

Ed Miliband’s first few questions to David Cameron today were about the various inquiries into child abuse. Miliband wasn’t interested in creating controversy: he didn’t ask about whether Lady Butler-Sloss was the right person to run the inquiry given that her late brother was Attorney General when Geoffrey Dickens handed his file to the Home Secretary. But then Miliband turned to the NHS and the atmosphere in the House flipped. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron and Miliband’ on Audioboo Cameron defiantly defended his use of statistics from last week. But it was once Miliband had asked his last question that Cameron went into full attack mode. He started denouncing Labour and

It was damn close. And it scored top marks for effort. Miliband’s plan today was to prove that Cameron’s NHS policy is a disaster. And to prove it with Cameron’s own admissions. Or omissions. ‘It’s four years since his top-down re-organisation of the NHS,’ began Miliband in that quiet, meticulous manner that always foretells a forensic ambush. ‘Have the numbers waiting for cancer treatment got better or worse?’ Cameron instinctively dodged the question. Miliband moved on to A&E waiting times. Cameron shifted and ducked again. Miliband asked about numbers waiting over four hours on a trolley. Cameron ran for cover. With each refusal Miliband triumphantly recited the figures that the

The pressure was all on Miliband today. With Cameron hurt, he needed to show that he can still press home an advantage. First, we all had to listen to the Speaker, who rather enjoys listening to himself. He began with a long and winding overture about the dangers of prejudicing the Coulson trial. One sentence would have done it: yesterday’s convictions are mentionable, those due today aren’t. But he rambled on and on. His legal witterings were delivered with all the clunking sonorities and ham pauses of an under-employed luvvie delivering the Gettysburg address. And he couldn’t stop interfering during the debate. Miliband had carefully planned his ambush and committed

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_19_June_2014.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the death of Westminster hawks” startat=726] Listen [/audioplayer]There is a slight whiff of the summer of 1914 to Westminster at the moment. The garden party season is in full swing and the chatter is all about who is up and who is down. In the Commons chamber itself, domestic political argument dominates. You would not know that a vicious sectarian war is raging in the Middle East. At the first Prime Minister’s Questions after the fall of Mosul to the terrorist group ISIS, no one asked David Cameron to explain the government’s policy on Iraq. The situation in Iraq is dire on

PMQs last week took place just hours after Mosul had fallen to ISIS. But despite this, not a single MP asked Cameron what the government’s position on the situation in Iraq was. Today, though, Ed Miliband devoted all six questions to the topic. There was much consensus between Cameron and Miliband but one doubts that the governments in either Baghdad or Tehran will take much notice of what was said in the Chamber. Indeed, the Commons seemed oddly passive about the exchanges as if everyone was aware of the limits to Britain’s ability to influence the situation. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron and Miliband on Iraq’ on Audioboo One thing that