Easy triumphs soften victors. Cameron demonstrated this truism today as he took two unexpected blows from Ed Miliband at PMQs. The Labour leader led on his new policy of rent controls. Cameron, rather weakly, seemed amenable to the reform but offered no concrete proposals of his own. Miliband struck.
‘That was a pretty quick U-turn, even for him.’
Miliband then asked about the preparations to surrender AstraZeneca, trussed and bound, to Pfizer – with all the attendant risks to jobs and investment.
Cameron flushed as red as a rhubarb crumble and accused Miliband of ‘playing politics’ while the government was ‘getting stuck in’ and defending the national interest.
What irked him was that the Pfizerisation of AstraZeneca has become yet another area where Miliband poses as a popular champion. Labour presents itself as the plucky foe of Big Pharma, while the government fiddles at the margins or connives with the fatcats.
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