A Prime Minister can leave PMQs happy if he’s sent his troops off for Christmas in a good mood. Today David Cameron managed that, weaving in festive jokes through a list of statistics that shot Labour down. He was helped by the fact that Ed Miliband didn’t have a coherent line of attack at all, dancing from complaining that the employment figures still showed too many people were in part-time work to energy bills, to the Chancellor’s missed targets on the economy and on to childcare and the the 50p rate.
There was a theme here: look at how the country is struggling to get enough work and afford the bills while the PM rewards his ‘Christmas card list’ with a tax cut. But Miliband failed to articulate that theme and instead looked as though he was hunting through grumbles about the government, desperately trying to find one that will stick.
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