PMQs sketch: Cameron keeps aiming below the belt
After months of Miliband vs Cameron knockabout, we have spotted the PM’s two weaknesses.
By Ian Dunt
It’s been several months now, and Ed Miliband’s various failings at the despatch box have not prevented him from revealing David Cameron’s two big weaknesses. Firstly, evasion. Secondly, getting personal.
The first is unavoidable, given the questions being offered to him. Miliband’s tactic is to paint the PM into a corner with highly specific demands. “Can the prime minister guarantee that under his NHS plans hospital waiting times would not rise,” Miliband asked, like an assassin.
Cameron rowed away from the question furiously. “We want to see waiting times come down.” he started, to groans and bile from the Labour benches, who temporarily turn into Newsnight viewers screaming at the TV when they’re at PMQs. “Answer the question,” they scream but to no avail. Miliband gives Cameron two choices: evade now or hand him a stick to beat him with at a later date. Cameron always takes the lesser pain. He’s doing it more and more though, and it’s starting to show.
All of which gave Miliband a juicy attack to end with. “It’s the same old story. You can’t trust the Tories on the NHS,” he told the Commons. That’s like red meat to Labour and they really came out in support of their leader today. It was a minor kicking. Miliband was undoubtedly the winner, but there was nothing approaching a knockout blow, nothing to really settle the matter.
And then Cameron goes and shoots himself in the foot again. “The same old feeble, pre-scripted lines,” he retorted. “I’m sure they sound fantastic in the bathroom mirror.” It’s about the third time we’ve heard that line from Cameron. It didn’t make much sense the first time, given we’re well aware that everyone at PMQs has pre-scripted lines.
Nearly every week, Cameron resorts to personal attacks on the Labour leader. It reflects badly on him. The prime minister is far more effective when playing the collegiate, reach-across-the-aisle statesman role, which he manages with aplomb the rest of the week. Note the way he always sounds like a centrist when pushing through radically right wing economic policies. But at PMQs, he increasingly sounds like an Etonian bully pushing the geeky kid’s head down the toilet.
His reactions also reveal how much Miliband gets to him. That is paradoxically raising the Labour leader’s star. Most journalists are completely unimpressed by Miliband, and they’ve edged close to branding him a joke more than once. Cameron’s emotional response to these bouts actually boosts the opposition leader’s standing. He would do far better to pretend he barely notices him.
As for Miliband, his performances continue to be effective, but stilted. I remain more impressed with him than most, but he lacks the flourish which could unquestionably seal a victory. His primary accomplishment so far is not to have damaged the prime minister, but to have created a dynamic in which the prime minister damages himself.
