Today’s battlefield

Today’s PMQs threatens to be overshadowed by the statement on Project Merlin, the government’s deal with the banks, expected at one o’clock. I suspect that Cameron will try and push away any questions on banks with the line that Miliband should wait for the Chancellor’s statement.

But PMQs will still be a far livelier affair than last week’s one. Watch to see whether Miliband tries to attack Cameron for hurting the Big Society.

Miliband has moved Labour away from ridiculing the idea to embracing it and saying that ‘Tory cuts’ are the threat to it. This is all part of Labour’s strategy to try and ‘recontaminate’ the Tory brand. But a PMQs duel on the subject would offer Cameron a platform to explain the idea, to say that his aim is not for charities to rely on state handouts but to be able to be paid by results for the services they provide.