PMQs sketch: Cameron out of control, but Miliband lacks killer touch
Cameron is too angry while Miliband is too clinical. These two could learn a lot from each other.
By Ian Dunt
Most rowing couples could be improved by taking on a little bit of their partners’ characteristics. Most angry wives need to lighten up about their husband’s late-night drinking sessions. Most stubborn husbands need to grow up.
David Cameron and Ed Miliband are what rowing couples would look like in some nightmarish future where the rules of taste, nature and decency don’t apply. It’s a horrible image and I’m sorry for inflicting it on you. But the same rule applies. These two could benefit from taking on a little bit of each other.
Cameron was completely out of control this lunchtime. He’s always unable to hide his anger with Miliband, but this was something else entirely. Was it the absence of Andy Coulson or just that today marked the straw that broke the camel’s back after a drip feed of negative news stories about his cherished and absurd ‘big society’ agenda?
Regardless, it took just one line from the Labour leader for Cameron to fly off the handle. “Can the prime minster tell us – how is his ‘big society’ going?” Miliband said. And that was it. Cameron had a prepared response but he couldn’t get through it without sounding shrill and belligerent. It’s hugely self-defeating.
By the end of the second question, Cameron was screaming back: “What are his plans?” It’s a quite absurd thing for a PM to say during prime minister’s questions. Bitter and defensive, Cameron acted like some guilty, cheating husband, his excessive reactions revealing his inner turmoil.
The PM’s red-faced fury allowed Miliband to get up above the fray. “He shouldn’t get so angry,” the leader of the opposition advised, a little smile playing on his lips. “It’ll cloud his judgement. He’s not the first prime minister I’ve said that too.” The joke, taken at Gordon Brown’s expense, almost guaranteed a warm review from the press gallery. They love this sort of thing. Clever little political in-jokes combined with tightrope-walking self-abuse from party leaders offer lobby hacks an irresistible cocktail. There are already a few people talking about this being his best performance.
Miliband should be wary of believing them. Today, as before, he lacked any indication of real fire in his belly. He seems permanently lethargic, anaemically moving from attack to attack with only a pretence of passion mustered for the final flourish. His forensic, clinical tone sees him ask simple, dangerous questions and it has served him well. But the tactic – to draw from several examples and then build to a damning general critique at the end – is now well understood. Today it moved from library cuts to Sure Start to a general attack on the ‘big society’ as a euphemism for spending cuts. It’s almost a GCSE essay: introduction, three arguments, conclusion.
But this mechanical approach makes him seem alien against Cameron’s intuitive, naturalistic presence. There is far too much quoting of charity leaders, far too much rehearsal time and far too little genuine passion. The final question, full of fire-and-brimstone rhetoric on cutting “too far too fast”, is clearly designed for the news, but Miliband has none of the anger needed to deliver a killing strike.
Cameron’s anger does him a disservice, belittling that statesmanlike poise he’s developed. Miliband’s clinical approach prevents him from fully taking advantage of it. They need a little bit of each other, these two. Wouldn’t that be cute? Now go find somewhere to be sick.
