PMQs or St Paul’s protest?

The Hair Shirt walked abroad at PMQs today. Those attending the Square Mile sleepover finally forced their agenda into the political mainstream. The question is, what is their agenda? A protest that doesn’t define its programme allows others to define it for them. And today both party leaders tried to harness the anti-capitalist spirit for their own political ends. Ed Miliband claimed to be scandalised by a recent, and arguable, surge of 49 per cent in directors’ pay. He demanded that the PM take action.

Cameron seemed equally appalled at the news that fat cats have been getting fatter during the recession. But he wasn’t taking any sermons from Labour. He berated Miliband for belonging to a government that ‘failed to regulate banks for 13 years,’ and whose revenue system taxed City bosses less than their cleaners. ‘This is the party that claimed to be intensely relaxed about getting filthy rich,’ said Cameron, his pink jowls shaking self-righteously.