PMQs old game

It was straight back into the old routine at PMQs today. Ed Balls heckled the Prime Minister who shouted back, John Bercow managed to call several of the MPs who irritate the Prime Minister most, and Cameron was, perhaps, slightly ruder to Ed Miliband than he had been intending to be.

Miliband’s attack, followed up by several Labour backbenchers, was that no one should believe Cameron’s new initiatives on housing, infrastructure and planning given that the PM’s previous, much heralded initiatives on them have not delivered. The point is debatable. But Cameron responded, as he so often does, with a slew of insults — some clever, some not so. He declared that the fact Miliband brings the coffee to shadow Cabinet shows ‘just how assertive and butch the leader of the opposition is.’ I’m not sure whether using this level of insult is wise; it isn’t particularly Prime Ministerial.

The biggest news of the session, though, was Cameron refusing to rule out a third runway at Heathrow but promising to stick to his manifesto commitment not to proceed with a third runway this parliament.