The battle for ‘fairness’ continues

Today’s PMQs will be another skirmish in the battle for fairness. All three parties know that there is no more potent word in British politics at the moment than fairness and they all want to be its champion.

But what will make PMQs interesting today is that Cameron and Miliband each have a powerful weapon in the fairness debate, but also a vulnerability. Miliband’s weapon is bankers’ bonuses – the government’s inaction over Stephen Hester’s bonus has given him plenty of material. But he’s acutely vulnerable over the benefits cap.

Cameron will be desperate to move the debate onto this territory. All the polling shows that Labour’s desire to have a cap higher than £26,000 in London plays, unsurprisingly, badly with the voters who can’t understand why a household where no one works should receive more in benefit than the average worker earns in wages.