Pmqs

At the end of PMQs today, David Cameron turned to George Osborne and said, ‘Well, that was a lot less stressful.’ I think this conclusively answers the question of whether or not Cameron is worried by Jeremy Corbyn’s PMQs technique of reading out questions that the public have sent in. Although, to be fair, I hear that Cameron was impressed by how calm Corbyn was today, especially considering that it was not only his PMQs debut but his  first ever appearance at the despatch box. The Prime Minister remarked afterwards that the Labour leader’s hands weren’t even shaking as he asked his questions.

Harriet Harman ended her final appearance at PMQs as the interim Labour leader with a parting shot in the direction of Jeremy Corbyn, who is the odds-on favourite to be the party’s next leader. ‘It was quite surprising to discover I’m not possibly old enough or posh enough to be the frontrunner of this leadership election,’ Harman told Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics. It’s true Corbyn is one year older than Harman, at 66, but is he really more posh than the St Paul’s Girls’ School alumnus? The die-hard socialist certainly has the most privileged upbringing of any of the Labour leadership candidates. Growing up in a seven-bedroom manor house

‘Put that on your leaflets,’ snarled Cameron at PMQs. Inwardly he was gloating. Labour voted against Tory welfare reforms last night so the PM was able to boast that Labour is fighting the new living wage. Some say Cameron is lurching to the left with his Five Year Plans and his state-controlled pay rises. The same applies to law and order. He’s getting a pinkish tinge. Philip Davies asked him to review the regulations governing early release for serious offenders. Cameron said he’d give it a go. It’s not good enough, he seemed to imply, having murderers murdering people shortly after gaining their freedom by promising to become pillars of

Budget leaks were once the cause of scandals, inquiries and resignations. But the contents of George Osborne’s red box were spilled across the papers last Sunday. By yesterday the entire package was old news. Yet Osborne remains addicted to the last-minute surprise. What would it be? Gym membership for Angus Robertson? Free counselling for ousted LibDems? Britain to join the drachma? The living wage – Osborne’s grand revelation – is his attempt to redraw British politics. It aligns the Tories with the working-class against Labour. The opposition wanted a minimum wage of £8 by 2020. Osborne ups that to £9. There are sweeteners for the squeezed middle too. The threshold

When George Osborne covered for David Cameron at PMQs last month, it was seen as his chance to prove to his critics that he was prime ministerial material. Alas, his attempt at a joke about Labour’s Bennites in answer to a question from Hilary Benn about suicide bombers has hit a particularly sour note with Labour. When Mr S caught up with Harriet Harman at The Spectator‘s summer party, the departing deputy leader was quick to criticise Osborne for joking about Benn’s late father Tony Benn, the former Cabinet minster: ‘I mean that thing he did with Hilary Benn where he said something about Tony Benn having died and I thought that’s generous and nice

Now that the Davies Commission has made its recommendation, the ball is back in the government’s court. The biggest immediate challenge the government has to face is David Cameron’s 2009 remark that ‘the third runway at Heathrow is not going ahead, no ifs, no buts.’ As James noted at PMQs today, the Prime Minister’s body language did not suggest he is particularly favourable towards Heathrow. But now the Airport Commission report has been received by the government, the buck has been passed to the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin. While Cameron said in the Commons that a decision will be made ‘by the end of the year’, McLoughlin said it would be

The phoney war continues. While Labour searches for its next Michael Foot, the party’s stand-in boss, Harriet Harman, seems keen to lose the 2020 election as soon as possible. Some argue Ed Miliband has already performed that task. Either way, defeat is the only thing Labour does efficiently nowadays. Ms Harman attacked the PM’s plan to abolish a policy that many hail as Gordon Brown’s Worst Ever Idea: tax credits. These mean that thousands of Whitehall scribblers deposit cash with workers who then return the money, via thousands more scribblers, to the government which never owned it in the first place. Labour loves the N Korean ambience of this system

At last it happened. Benn led Labour. Hilary Benn, grandson of a hereditary peer, stood up at PMQs on behalf of the dispossessed. Gravitas was his chosen register. Radicalisation was his chosen theme. His policy: more cash for cops and teacher to discourage Muslims from joining the death-cult. Let’s hope it works. The SNP’s Angus Robertson asked how Sir John Chilcot is proceeding with his slim volume of research into the Iraq war. Who knows? It’s said that Lord Lloyd Webber has already abandoned his ‘Chilcot the Musical’ project because investors couldn’t agree how many years each performance should last. His spokesman, pressed this morning for a deadline, confirmed that