PMQs sketch: The Commons boils over
Was this mess a piece of abstract art? The result of a toddler running amok? Neither – it was just an extremely chaotic prime minister's questions.
By Alex Stevenson Follow @alex__stevenson
At first David Cameron's exchanges with Ed Miliband were relatively civilised. After a return to form last week, the leader of the opposition appeared to be retreating back into statesman mode for his first set of three questions, on Libya. A far cry from the passionate histrionics of last week, true, but he appeared to have elicited a genuine slip from Cameron over a review of the defence review. It will take further reviews of the footage to establish whether this review is really a review worth reviewing in more depth.
In the meantime, therefore, our focus is on Miliband's second set of questions. Again he repeated the tactic of last week, in which he picks a relatively obscure area of policy and doesn't let go. This time round it was the DNA of suspected rapists, and whether it's a good idea to delete them from police computers or not.
It's been a while since Cameron has been able to bash Labour for civil liberties, given Miliband's previous enthusiasm for bashing his own party on the issue. That appeared to have fallen by the wayside today. And so the PM struck his point home hard. "We inherited an unacceptable situation," he said. Prime ministers always enjoy blaming the last lot; even after 13 years in power, New Labour blamed the Tories before them for pretty much everything.
Miliband has no such luxury, so he pressed on. But something odd was happening. The government backbenchers, especially those behind the Cabinet on the front row, were hooting and heckling. Mad cackling was heard. Meanwhile, home secretary Theresa May was giving Cameron the key policy information needed to rebut Miliband's comments.
"I know he wants some help from the home secretary," Miliband quavered, before asking his question.
Cameron stood up, chest billowing out. It was as if those Tory MPs behind him had each been 20 or 30 boxing coaches, each whispering words of encouragement into his ear between rounds. Now he waded into the middle of the ring with all the combined confidence they could muster. "I understand some worry that in this government we actually talk to each other!" he crowed, with all the swagger of the school bully. "This is clearly not the case!"
Miliband was sitting bolt upright in his seat, frowning with the desperate concentration of a child trying to work out whether six times seven equals 41 or 43.
"It's perfectly clear the shadow chancellor and the leader of the Labour party don't speak to each other at all," Cameron crowed. "I have the proof! This week he made a huge announcement on a massive VAT cut, and yet…"
At this point the referee, Speaker John Bercow, intervened to end the duffing-up. It was time for Miliband, shaking himself off, to get back into the fight. "Let me give this lesson to the prime minister," he said, trying to sound sonorous. "Ohhh!" the government's MPs replied in unison, like a gameshow audience being encouraged by Sir Bruce Forsyth.
Miliband, scoring his best point of the session, then observed: "It would be better to talk to his colleagues before they put forward the policy, not afterwards!"
Bish! Bosh! Bash! Another blow for the Labour leader. But here was Cameron, ploughing back into the fray once more. He ignored the rather sensitive comments of the head of Rape Crisis Miliband had quoted and, head down, kept pummelling away. "What we tend to find with his questions is he comes up with some idea, gets it completely wrong in the Commons, and we then find out afterwards he's given a partial answer," he seethed.
In the past Cameron has been especially good at finessing his remarks so that the great rhetorical peak comes right at the end, leaving his MPs bellowing for more. Not today. After yet another interruption from the Speaker, all he had time for was: "I'm not surprised he doesn't want to talk about the issues his party's been putting forward this week because I don't suppose he knew about them." There was no yelling or cheering from MPs. Just a continuation of the background ruckus which had continued throughout the exchanges.
That, in Bercow's view, was quite enough. The main event was over, in what appeared to be a bloody scoring draw. It was time for everybody to go home. But MPs, thoroughly worked up, had all the restless unease caused by a missing climax. "The House needs to simmer down and take whatever tablets are necessary," the Speaker urged.
Tory backbencher Marcus Jones had obviously not been taking his medication. Clearly worked up, or perhaps in a bid to just make himself heard, he used measures tones to shout and scream his question.
Jones' concerns about the coalition's "reckless raft of unfunded tax cuts and spending commitments", all uttered in a Midlands howl, proved too much for the Speaker. "The honourable gentleman will now resume his seat!" Bercow boomed. MPs finally shushed each other and settled down – the collective version, we suppose, of 'calm down, dear'.
