Today’s main PMQs drama came after the session itself had ended. Julie Hilling, a Labour MP who Cameron had said was ‘sponsored’ by the union whose leader threatened to disrupt the Olympics last night, said in a point of order that she was not ‘sponsored’ by Unite. The Labour benches were in full flow, jeering at Cameron as he was leaving the chamber. Cameron then returned to the despatch box and pointed out that she had declared a donation from Unite to her constituency Labour party in the register of members’ interests. I suspect that this row about the meaning of the word sponsorship will rumble on. Labour hate the charge while the Tories think it is politically potent.
In the session itself, the Cameron-Miliband exchanges were more revealing than usual. Miliband started by asking about the latest revelations at the Leveson inquiry. However, he made a strategic error when he attacked Michael Gove for warning about the ‘chilling effect’ of the inquiry. Anyone who works in journalism at the moment knows that the inquiry is producing a chilling effect. In politics, there are stories that are in the public interest that are not being investigated because of the current atmosphere. Miliband today sounded dangerously close to being somebody who wants a French-style, muzzled media. He would be well advised to correct this impression.
On the Health Service, Miliband once again had the better of the exchanges. It really is his home banker, allowing him to land blows on both Cameron and Clegg. But these morale-boosting and politically useful points victories aren’t helping address Labour’s biggest weakness: its lack of economic credibility. Interestingly, and refreshingly, Cameron again chose to argue that competition will help drive up standards in the NHS. Today also saw the debut of a new Ed Balls hand gesture: all the way through Cameron’s answers, Balls mimicked a man digging a hole for himself.
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