Miliband attacks PM for ‘intellectual collapse’ at tepid PMQs

Commentators sometimes like to describe a particular session of Prime Minister’s Questions as ‘vintage’. If ‘vintage’ is the correct description for the good weeks, this one was more of a serving of tepid Blue Nun.

David Cameron was in a very odd mood indeed. He was clearly pleased with an early quip referencing Miliband’s Desert Island Discs appearance. He joked that Miliband ‘isn’t loving Marx, he’s loving Engels instead’. The joke was so dreadful that the entire Chamber convulsed as though winded by a fast-moving cricket ball.

Miliband attacked the Prime Minister on his inconsistency over payday loan caps and climate change policy. This was a good theme, and gave the Labour leader the killer line that what had happened this week was ‘an intellectual collapse of their position’. But Cameron’s response was very poor indeed. He told the Commons that ‘I feel like one of those radio hosts saying “and your complaint is?”‘ and then went on to tell Miliband that ‘he should be standing up and congratulate us’.