Miliband out of the danger zone

Up, up, up! It was the only way he could go. For the last couple of months Ed Miliband has arrived at PMQs like a hapless fag with his bottom ready-stripped for a ritual flogging from Flashman. Today he made a proper fight of it. This was his best PMQs performance since his debut.

He’s been studying the old masters. Long-term followers of PMQs will have recognised William Hague’s favourite battle-plan today. In football it would be called ‘pass-and-go’. You ask a question. Then dismiss the answer as inadequate. Ask a second question. Dismiss the second answer as inadequate. Move to a third question while pointing out, in parenthesis, that your interviewee is making a habit of not giving proper answers. Then ask a fourth and fifth, and by the sixth question you’ve created the impression that a huge backlog of unaddressed queries and unresolved problems has built up. It’s the sort of devious, swift-footed technique a clever prosecutor would use to make an honest witness look unreliable.