VERDICT: A crescendo of a PMQs, which started in sombre fashion but soon swelled into a vicious confrontation between the two leaders. It is strangely difficult to say who won, not least because both men had their moments. Ed Miliband’s persistent anger — including over Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of BSkyB — will have chimed with public sentiment. But Cameron went further than expected by backing a public inquiry into the phone hacking affair, and without much equivocation either. In the end, though, I’d say Miliband probably came out on top, for seeming less on the side of News International.
1242: No surprises from Cameron’s statement on Afghanistan. It was, in effect, a more straightforward, less lyrical version of Barack Obama’s recent speech on the same: Osama Bin Laden has been killed, gains have been made, our goals are being accomplished, etc, etc. Cameron confirmed that an extra 500 troops will be pulled out of the country by the end of next year, a figure that had been hammered out with the generals over the past few days. And he appealed to the Taliban to break from Al Qaeda, and join a political peace process with the Afghan government. After emphasising that we need Pakistan’s involvement in this transitional phase, the Prime Minister paid hearty tribute to our military. Ed Miliband is standing to respond now, but I shall break off to deliver my PMQs verdict.
1233: And that’s it for PMQs. I’ll give my short verdict just after Cameron has got through his statement on troop numbers in Afghanistan.
1231: Ben Bradshaw reheats his leader’s sentiments on BSkyB: if we couldn’t trust News International’s assurances over phone hacking, why should we trust its parent company, News
Corporation, now? And Cameron reheats his earlier answer: that the government has followed due legal process, just as it should.
1228: A spiky question from the Labour backbenches, asking Cameron whether — given IDS’s recent remarks on British workers — the DWP will stop outsourcing jobs in the North East to Bangalore. Cameron says he will look into this specific case, and then takes a swipe at the proliferation of out-of-work benefit claims under Labour.
1225: Cameron flusters when asked why the government hasn’t yet banned Hizb ut-Tahrir, as he pushed the previous government to do. “It is frustrating that there are so many legal requirements,” he says, “but we are a government that operates under the law.”
1221: The backbench questions, so far, have dwelt on the public finances. Cameron is set up to use one of the Tories’ favourite, current attacks: “Your Plan B is a plan for
bankruptcy,” he wags at the Labour benches. It’s Michael Fallon who coined the phrase, I think. A subsequent question points out that a Labour government needed to be bailed out by the IMF in
the 1970s. Intriguingly, Cameron cites the recent vote against extending the UK’s fiscal
involvement in the IMF as evidence that Labour wants to withdraw from the world.
1217: Cameron finishes his exchange with Miliband in some anger, waving his finger and going red in the face. “That is why we need a proper inquiry,” he says, “and we won’t
take lectures from you!”
1216: Miliband is going much further now, pressing Cameron on whether Rebekah Brooks should step down from News International. And then he lobs in the C-bomb: Coulson. The Prime Minister’s
judgement is dodgy, he claims, to roars from the Labour benches. For his part, Cameron declines to be drawn on Brooks’s position, and says that he “takes responsibility” for everyone he
has employed.
1212: Ooh, but the mood is souring now, as the leaders exchange blows over Murdoch’s proposed takeover of BSkyB. Miliband urges Cameron to put the process on ice, but Cameron responds that the government has followed due legal process all along. He then accuses the Labour leader of shifting from his earlier position on this matter, to “look good in the Commons”. Miliband hits back that the PM is “out of touch” with the public mood.
1208: This is a very civilised conversation between the two leaders, so far. Miliband says that he understands that a full public inquiry may have to wait — but agrees with Cameron that some of the groundwork can be laid now. The two men exchange ideas about the whos, hows and whens.
1205: Miliband adopts a funeral, sombre tone for his first question. He says that the latest News of the World revelations are “appalling”, and asks: “Will the Prime Minister support a full public inquiry into what has happened.” Cameron makes a big shift from the government’s previous position in response: “Let us be clear, yes, we do need an inquiry — if not inquiries — into what has happened.” He adds that there are two areas that need to be investigated, in particular: why the original police inquiry failed so completely, and the ethics of the journalism trade. His final point is that some of the process will have to wait until after the end of the current police investigation.
1202: After Cameron’s opening remarks and condolences, Labour’s Ronnie Campbell spits out an opening question on bailing out the “banks” of Greece, Ireland and Greece. He finishes: “Why does the Prime Minister not get on his bike, go to the City, and sack a few spicvs and speculators?” Cameron uses his favourite defence on this front: that the coalition have brought in a bank levy, as Labour never did.
Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200.
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