Weak, weak, weak

Weak again. For the second session in a row Miliband was feeble at PMQs. He opened in his quiet-assassin mode with a quickie question. ‘There are reports that the government is planning changes to housing benefit reforms. Are they?’ Clearly he meant to wrong-foot Cameron by tempting him into admission which could be instantly disproved. But Cameron simply denied the suggestion and Miliband had no embarrassing disclosure to fire back with. Pretty duff tactics there.

He fared slightly better when he asked Cameron what advice he’d give to a family facing a 10 percent cut in housing benefit after the chief bread-winner had been unemployed for a year. Cameron replied that unlimited benefits ‘are a serious disincentive to work.’ There were 37,000 Londoners on job-seekers allowance for over 12 months in that period 400,000 vacancies had appeared in the capital. Miliband flared up at this. He shouted that the PM was about to put half a million out of work.