PMQs sketch: easy sling-shots and grubby sloganising

If there’s a problem in Birmingham it’s too gnarled and subtle for PMQs. Easy sling-shots and grabby sloganising are all that’s required. Ed Miliband had found a simple point of entry to the issue. Buck-passing. Who, he asked, is responsible for monitoring schools that incubate extremism?

The answer is fivefold, said the PM. Head teachers, school governors, local authorities, Ofsted and ultimately Whitehall. Which is plenty. But not for Ed. He wants to recruit a whole new tranche of liberal storm-troopers, on 24-hour stand-by, ready to swoop on rogue schools and airlift extremist teachers out of the class-room. ‘A proper system of local oversight’ was how he described this task-force. Which is good news if you happen to be a teacher disillusioned with teaching.