Pmqs

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

A day off for Dave

The giraffe was back. Hattie Harman came to PMQs today wearing That Frock with its eccentric pattern of burnt umber pentagonals framed by light squiggly outlines. A great colour scheme for camouflaging giraffes in Africa. And an even better one for attracting attention in the house. Why does Hattie feel herself particularly giraffic? Her noble breeding naturally aligns her sympathies with an animal that has evolved upwards over many generations and can enjoy the lush topmost leaves not available to lowlier creatures. Or perhaps it’s her unsteady gait as she lumbers through her questions. Or perhaps it’s the fact that if she leans forwards and touches her knees with her

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 17 November 2010

VERDICT: Harriet Harman’s questions must have looked quite clever on paper: a heavy emphasis on police cuts, followed by a quick dose of indigation over the vanity photographers. But, in reality, they were breezily repelled by Cameron. All he had to do was cite the words of Alan Johnson and refer to a list of Labour’s own dodgy hires. By the time Harman attacked the cost of elected police commissioners, leaving Cameron to stand up for greater local democracy and accountability, it was clear who had won this bout: the Prime Minister, by some distance. Although, as Andrew Neil and Tim Montgomerie have noted, the absence of any talk about

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Cheating on the students

Writhe, squirm, cringe and cower. The Commons wanted to inflict ritual punishments on Nick Clegg today for his broken pledges on student fees. The plan nearly succeeded. With Cameron in China, (finding out what happened to our manufacturing base), Clegg took his place at the dispatch box opposite Harriet Harman.    Long practice has given Harman some skill, and even self-possession, at the dispatch box. She had an exceptionally easy target today. As she stood up to give Slick Nick a roasting, the streets around parliament were swelling with angry university-goers waving photos of Clegg signing his fateful election pledge on fees. The LibDem manifesto was being burned in public.

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 10 November 2010

VERDICT: Earlier today, I wrote that the coalition “has few better defenders of its cause than Nick Clegg”. You wouldn’t have guessed it from this PMQs performance. Harman had him on the back foot over tuition fees from the off, and he struggled to give concise, clear answers in return. A pity, because Clegg is right when he says that the coalition has a better policy than Labour’s messy graduate tax – yet there was too much waffle, and too little directness, from him today. The deputy Prime Minister was better when he blazed with anger over Labour’s hypocrisy. But, on the whole, this was a bout to cheer the

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Music hall act fails to cut it next to suave Etonian

Miliband’s in a mess. He makes it far too easy for Cameron to portray him as a hypocritical opportunist who sidles up to PMQs every week with lame soundbites and incoherent policies. How come? Perhaps because he sidles up to PMQs every week with lame soundbites and incoherent policies. Today he tried to unsettle the PM with the news that ‘members of his government’ (ie LibDems) ‘have given cast-iron guarantees that they would vote against a rise in tuition fees.’ This isn’t a Cameron problem. It’s a Clegg problem. Right issue, wrong tactics. Cameron had no difficulty adopting a noble but weary expression and praising his coalition partners for taking

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hardly vintage stuff from Ed and Dave

Neither Ed Miliband nor David Cameron had a good PMQs. Cameron let his irritation at questions about the appointment of his campaign photographer to a civil service post show. It was also a bit rich for him to criticise a Labour MP for asking a question scripted by the whips when Tory MPs ask patsy questions with monotonous regularity, I counted at least four in this session alone. But the regular shouts of ‘cheese, cheese’ from the Labour benches were clearly riling the Prime Minister. But it wasn’t a good session for Ed Miliband either. His delivery was rather halting and he stumbled on his words far more than he

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 3 November 2010

VERDICT: Perhaps the snappiest exchange between Cameron and Miliband so far, with both men on combative form. Miliband’s charge was that, from tuition fees to child benefit, the coalition is breaking promises that it made before the election. And Cameron’s counter was that he has had to take tough action to deal with the mess that Labour left behind, and that Ed Miliband has nothing to offer to that process other than kneejerk opposition. As exchanges across the dispatch box go, that’s pretty standard stuff – but at least it was packaged with some wit (although little real insight) today. A score draw. 1232: And that’s it. My short verdict

Saturday

Martin Bright

The unofficial parliamentary sketch writer of the year award

For the second year running, my politics class at City University has voted for Ann Treneman as the best parliamentary sketch writer (Quentin Letts won in 2008). I like to have an early session on the parliamentary sketch writer’s art. This is especially useful for foreign students, to whom the concept of the sketch is alien. Indeed, one of my students this year got quite angry. “I just don’t understand this,” she said. “It’s not funny, it’s not clever. I don’t like it.” She could be forgiven for being mystified by Simon Hoggart’s sketch on Transport Questions this week, which was based on children’s classic, The Railway Children, “with twinkle-eyed stationmaster

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Weak, weak, weak

Weak again. For the second session in a row Miliband was feeble at PMQs. He opened in his quiet-assassin mode with a quickie question. ‘There are reports that the government is planning changes to housing benefit reforms. Are they?’ Clearly he meant to wrong-foot Cameron by tempting him into admission which could be instantly disproved. But Cameron simply denied the suggestion and Miliband had no embarrassing disclosure to fire back with. Pretty duff tactics there. He fared slightly better when he asked Cameron what advice he’d give to a family facing a 10 percent cut in housing benefit after the chief bread-winner had been unemployed for a year. Cameron replied

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The new fairness battleground

The f word, fairness, got another outing today at PMQs as David Cameron attempted to defend the coalition’s proposed housing benefit changes from attack by Ed Miliband. Cameron’s argument was that it isn’t fair for people to be subsiding people on housing benefit to live in houses that they couldn’t afford to live in themselves. On this, I strongly suspect that most people in the country agree with him. If Labour wants to turn housing benefit into a big issue, the wedge will work to the Conservatives’ advantage. However, what should be worrying the coalition is that the changes to housing benefit will have to be implemented by local authorities,

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 27 October 2010

VERDICT: The housing benefit cuts inspired Ed Miliband’s chosen attack – and he deployed it quite effectively, with none of the unclarity that we saw last week. For the most part, though, Cameron stood firm – leaning on his favourite rhetorical stick, What Would Labour Do? – and his final flurry against Ed Miliband was enough, I think, to win him this encounter on points. But don’t expect this housing benefit issue to dissipate quickly. Bob Russell’s question was evidence enough of how tricky this could be for the coalition. 1232: And that’s it. My quick verdict shortly. 1231: Bob Russell, a Lib Dem, says that housing benefit cuts are

Peter Hoskin

Miliband’s stage directions

Labour have sprung a leak, and it’s furnishing the Times with some high-grade copy. Yesterday, the paper got their hands on an internal party memo about economic policy. Today, it’s one on how Ed Miliband should deal with PMQs (£). With this week’s bout only an hour-and-a-half away, here are some of the key snippets: 1. The Big Prize. “The big prize is usually to provoke the PM into appearing evasive by repeatedly failing to answer a simple question, often one that requires a simple Yes or No.” 2. Cheer lines. “It’s important to have a cheer line that goes down well in the chamber and can be clipped easily

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Cameron’s warm-up act for Boy George

Cameron was a mere warm-up man at PMQs today. With Osborne’s statement due at 12.30 the session felt like a friendly knock-up rather than the main fixture. Ed Miliband rose to thunderous cheers from his backbenches and he tried to capitalise on their support by opening up an ancient Tory wound – heartless attitudes to unemployment. Spotting Cameron chinwagging with Osborne instead of listening, Miliband chided the PM for not paying attention. ‘Well, it’s a novel concept,’ said Dave smoothly ‘but in this government the prime minister and the chancellor speak to each other.’   Ed’s problem was that the OBR has predicted rising employment for the next three years.

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 20 October 2010

QUICK VERDICT: More heat than light today, but Cameron easily got the better of Ed Miliband. Now to the Spending Review live blog. 1230: Cameron says that as cuts are made, the government will have to reform the way it does criminal justice. This is a prelude for the deep cuts that the Home Office and Justice department are expected to face in the spending review. 1228: The Lib Dem MP asks whether Cameron believes that better-off graduates should bear more for their university costs. Cameron says that he agrees on principle, and claims that “everyone in the House” wants the “same thing”: a fair and well-funded university system. 1226:

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Cameron’s cruise uninterrupted by Miliband’s confident start

You could write a book about that. The first ever Dave vs Ed Miliband fixture at PMQs was a fascinating joust between two smart, skilful and ruthlessly ambitious public men who have been groomed for power, in their different ways, from the cradle. Four decades of arduous preparation led to this tumultuous match. Ed Miliband opened in funereal tones and offered ritual homages to the dead of Afghanistan. Then in his modest bank-manager’s manner he pledged to support government reform to sickness benefits. But not, he added ominously, to child benefit cuts. How many families with one stay-home parent would suffer from the forthcoming cuts, he asked. Cameron couldn’t answer

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband starts with a bang

Score the first round to Ed Miliband. In his debut PMQs performance, Miliband comfortably got the better of David Cameron, forcing him onto the defensive for most of the session. Miliband’s first question was a long and worthy one about the death of Linda Norgrove, the UK aid worker, in Afghanistan last week. Then, he moved to the proposed child benefit changes, asking Cameron to justify the anomaly where a single earner family on £45,000 a year would lose it while a two earner household on £80,000 would keep it. Cameron’s problem was that nine days after the policy was announced, he still has no answer to his point. (Although,

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 13 October 2010

VERDICT: Well, who would have thought it? In his first PMQs performance, Ed Miliband not only put in a solid showing – but he got the better of David Cameron. I certainly don’t agree with the Labour leader’s central argument: that it is unfair to restrict child benefit. But he put his point across in measured, reasonable tones – and Cameron seemed flustered by comparison, as he wagged on about the size of the deficit. Make no mistake, the argument and the public’s sympathies will unwind themselves over the course of the entire Parliament. They will not be resolved in one session of PMQs. But in presentational terms, MiliE will

David Blackburn

Miliband versus Dave – round one

Well, here it is. Ed Miliband will meet David Cameron for the first time at PMQs today. For all his determination and tactical sense, Miliband has his work cut out. Neither gave vintage speeches at the recent party conferences, but, in terms of presentation, Cameron’s easy wit trumps Miliband’s adenoidal drone. This will be Westminster’s final act of posturing before next Wednesday’s spending review, a vanity soon to be forgotten. However, Labour has to fertilise its barren economic policy, and quickly. PMQs is the best opportunity to start.  Labour’s strategy is clear: the government has made no plans for growth; in fact, their cuts are inimical to growth and squeeze hard-pressed middle earners. This

Tuesday

Martin Bright

Ed Miliband calls for humility – now let’s see some

So Ed Miliband told the Parliamentary Labour Party that he and they need to show humility. He is right, but this is easy to say and much, much harder to do. We shall see whether he has managed it at the despatch box tomorrow when the tackles David Cameron at his first PMQs. The feeling power gives politicians seeps into their bones and they get used to the trappings of deference. Ed Miliband has been close to significant power for most of his adult life, as have many of the people around him.  They need to realise that for a while – about 18 months probably – no one will

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Miliband’s dilemma

The day after the leader’s speech is always a slightly flat time at a party conference. But Manchester today feels particularly flat. Everyone knows that the two big political stories are happening down in London: David Miliband’s expected announcement that he is not standing for the shadow Cabinet and the Fox flap. One of the challenges for Ed Miliband is going to be asserting his authority with his parliamentary colleagues, most of whom didn’t vote for him. Added to this is the fact that many of them remember him as a young bag-carrier. Members of the shadow Cabinet were openly mocking his ‘new generation’ line last night. All this is