Miliband and Cameron get personal as they clash on bonuses
By Ian Dunt
Ed Miliband and David Cameron engaged in a series of personal insults today, as they traded blows on bank bonuses.
In the most bad-tempered set of exchanged between the two men to date, Ed Miliband sarcastically asked the prime minister how his pre-election “promise” to limit bonuses in taxpayer-owned banks to £2,000 was going.
A response from Mr Cameron prompted the Labour leader to say: “The country is getting fed up with the prime minister’s pathetic excuses for the banks.”
Mr Miliband asked Mr Cameron why it was fair for the banks to have received a tax cut this year when everyone else was suffering tax rises.
The Labour leader insists that the replacement of the one-off bonus tax, which raised £3.5 billion, with the ongoing bank levy, which raises £1.2 billion per year, constitutes a tax cut.
“We’re not [offering a tax cut],” Mr Cameron replied.
“I know the shadow chancellor can’t do the numbers. There’s no point Wallace asking Grommit on that one.”
Asked about plans to force banks to reveal the level of remuneration – cited by business secretary Vince Cable in a secretly recorded interview last month – Mr Cameron replied: “He had 13 years to put these rules in place.”
Mr Miliband replied: “He’s had eight months to hold the banks to account, when will he start?”
The prime minister said he would take no lessons on bank reform from the benches opposite, who “let them get away with murder”.
He then reminded the Commons that Mr Miliband was at the Treasury when the decision was taken to knight Fred Goodwin for services to banking.
“That is why no-one will ever trust Labour on banking or the economy again,” Mr Cameron said.
Mr Miliband countered that at the time Mr Cameron was demanding less regulation of the banks.
“It’s one rule for the banks and another for everyone else,” the Labour leader said.
Mr Cameron replied: “We’ve ended up with a shadow chancellor who can’t count and a Labour leader who doesn’t count.
“He was the nothing man when he was trying to run the Treasury and he’s the nothing man now he’s running the Labour party.”
The bruising encounter left many commentators startled by how low personal relations between the two men have sunk, as they exchanged personal insults for witty jibes.
The government has been on the backfoot over bank bonuses all week, since it backed down on efforts to control this year’s round of bonuses in the City.
Mr Cameron’s conciliatory tone towards the banks during interviews raised eyebrows over the weekend, as the Tory high command struggled to distance itself from the City while still maintaining the argument that Labour is primarily responsible for the state of the nation’s finances.
A robust exchange in the Commons yesterday saw shadow chancellor Alan Johnson accused George Osborne of “sneering arrogance”.
Since arriving in government, the coalition had gone from “the scent of the rose garden to the stench of broken promises”, Mr Johnson said.
