Pmqs

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Afghanistan tragedy overshadows PMQs

I have rarely heard the House of Commons as quiet as it was at the start of PMQs today. The sad news from Afghanistan was, rightly, weighing on MPs’ minds. The initial Cameron Miliband exchanges were on the conflict there with the two leaders agreeing with each other. In some ways, though, I wonder whether the country would not benefit more from some forensic debate about the strategic aims of the mission. However the volume level in the House increased when Joan Ruddock asked the PM if he was ‘truly proud’ of taking benefits away from disabled children. Cameron, with a real flash of anger, shot back that ‘as someone

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

These NHS bouts are becoming more insipid by the week

Health reforms again dominated PMQs today. That’s four weeks in a row. And the great debate, like a great sauce, has now been reduced to infinitesimal differences of flavouring. David Cameron repeated his claim that 8200 GP practices are implementing his policies. But, corrected Ed Miliband, that’s not because they love the reforms. It’s because they love their patients. He quoted a Tower Hamlets health commissioner who berated the PM for confusing reluctant acquiescence with whole-hearted endorsement. Fair enough. But this nicety won’t resonate beyond the tips of either men’s brogues. The rest of the bout was a repeat of last week’s effortful stalemate. Mr Miliband had a list of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband can count on the NHS in PMQs, but not much else

Today’s main PMQs drama came after the session itself had ended. Julie Hilling, a Labour MP who Cameron had said was ‘sponsored’ by the union whose leader threatened to disrupt the Olympics last night, said in a point of order that she was not ‘sponsored’ by Unite. The Labour benches were in full flow, jeering at Cameron as he was leaving the chamber. Cameron then returned to the despatch box and pointed out that she had declared a donation from Unite to her constituency Labour party in the register of members’ interests. I suspect that this row about the meaning of the word sponsorship will rumble on. Labour hate the

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Miliband snipes, Cameron deflects, Bercow bobs

Let’s be honest. I shouldn’t say this but I can’t help it. I’m fed up. The NHS reform process has been dragging on for months, and still there’s no end in sight. Ed Miliband brought it up at PMQs for the third week running. The position remains the same. Miliband loves it. Cameron lives with it. The PM claimed that 8,200 GP practices are now practising his reforms and the Labour leader replied with a list of professional bodies — nurses, doctors, midwives, radiologists — who oppose them. And that’s exactly the trouble, for me, at least. If the issue were a race-horse some crazy campaigner would plunge beneath its

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband revels in his NHS attack

Today’s PMQs was a reminder that whenever Ed Miliband goes on the NHS he is guaranteed a result. Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Miliband enjoying himself as much in the chamber as he was today. When Andrew Lansley leaned over to try and tell Cameron the answer to a question, Miliband mockingly remarked ‘Let me say to the Health Secretary, I don’t think the PM wants advice from you’. As Cameron’s assaults became more direct, Miliband did not — as he often does — go into his shell. As he sat down at the end of it all, the Labour leader had to push down on his knee to

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

In PMQs, Cameron plays for a draw on the NHS

How much does it cost to change a light bulb? Three hundred quid, said David Cameron at PMQs today. Ed Miliband came to the House eager to pile more pressure on the PM and his unloved NHS restructuring plan. Cameron fought back by citing the health bungles Labour presided over while in office. Billions wasted on kaput computers. Hundreds of millions blown on phantom operations. And dead light bulbs that cost more to replace than a week’s holiday in Spain. Cameron’s tactics were better than in previous weeks. Rather than citing some lone wolf medic who supports his reforms he gave us a surprise announcement, albeit unsourced. ‘Ninety-five per cent

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband gets the better of Cameron on the NHS

As expected, Ed Miliband went on the NHS and it helped deliver him a points victory. Whenever Miliband raises the issue at PMQs, David Cameron’s rather overly macho body language gives away that he knows he is playing on a sticky wicket. The exchanges today were not particularly enlightening but Miliband had the better of them. There was, though, one effective counter-attack from Cameron where he compared what is happening to the NHS in England to what is happening in Wales where the devolved administration is sticking with the status quo. There’s mileage in this argument if the coalition has the patience to develop it. But part of the problem

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband to keep pressing on with his NHS attacks

The last PMQs before recess gives Ed Miliband a chance to have another go at the coalition’s NHS reforms. I suspect that the ‘Andrew Lansley should be taken out and shot’ quote that appeared in Rachel Sylvester’s column (£) will make an appearance at some point.   Miliband will keep going on the NHS because he knows it is one of the Tories’ biggest vulnerabilities and one of the few subjects on which Cameron isn’t confident attacking. Based on past performance, any PMQs where the focus is on NHS reform will produce at least a score draw for the Labour leader.   But I still don’t expect Cameron to move

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Miliband finds his niche, and leaves Cameron looking boorish

Miliband is getting the measure of PMQs. Not with respect to Cameron. With respect to himself. He’s learned that his strongest register — sanctimony — will always ring hollow unless it’s attached to a powerful cause. And his gags don’t work. So he’s ditched his team of funny men and wise-crackers and turned to his political instincts instead. Miliband’s gut worked today. He began with a question which he knew Cameron couldn’t answer. Why hasn’t the government activated the laws requiring banks to name all employees earning over a million year? The PM answered by not answering. He performed a transparent switcheroo from the particular question to the general topic.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories push benefit cap in PMQs, Miliband ignores it

As expected, the Tories did everything they could to make the benefit cap the subject of PMQs. One Tory MP managed to slip in a question on it just before Miliband got up, allowing Cameron to press the Labour leader on the issue even before he had started speaking. Tory MPs kept coming back to the benefit cap — there were five questions on it in all — allowing Cameron to repeatedly mock the Labour front bench for not saying what its position is. ‘Just nod — are you with us or against us?’ was one of the lines Cameron tried to goad them with. But in the main clashes

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The battle for ‘fairness’ continues

Today’s PMQs will be another skirmish in the battle for fairness. All three parties know that there is no more potent word in British politics at the moment than fairness and they all want to be its champion. But what will make PMQs interesting today is that Cameron and Miliband each have a powerful weapon in the fairness debate, but also a vulnerability. Miliband’s weapon is bankers’ bonuses – the government’s inaction over Stephen Hester’s bonus has given him plenty of material. But he’s acutely vulnerable over the benefits cap. Cameron will be desperate to move the debate onto this territory. All the polling shows that Labour’s desire to have

Wednesday

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

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Both leaders left smiling after PMQs

Today was one of those PMQs when you sensed that both sides were fairly happy with how it had gone. Ed Miliband turned in one of his stronger performances, cleverly splitting his questions and so allowing himself to have a go at both the economy and the coalition’s troubled NHS reforms. Cameron, for his part, got through what was always going to be a difficult session for him after this morning’s negative growth numbers.   Strikingly, there were four planted Tory questions on the benefits cap. The Tories know that Labour’s vote against it compounds one of their biggest vulnerabilities, the sense they are the party for people on benefits

Wednesday

Camilla Swift

Cameron’s fight over the Falklands

Thirty years on from the Falklands War, and the hostility between Britain and Argentina persists. And it was that hostility that delivered the most striking moment of PMQs earlier. Not only did David Cameron, at the insistence of Andrew Rosindell, describe the Argentinian attitude towards the Islands as ‘far more like colonialism’ than that of the British, but he also confirmed that the National Security Council yesterday discussed the simmering situation in the south Atlantic. As he put it himself, he wants to send out a ‘strong message’ to Argentina, after the recent sabre-rattling actions of their President, Cristina Kirchner — which Daniel has blogged about here. The question that’s