Pmqs

PMQs Sketch: Airports and angry Nats

Chooom! Davies has arrived. Sir Howard’s report made a text-book landing on the PM’s desk yesterday afternoon and began taxiing towards Cameron’s in-tray. But the PM hasn’t read it yet. Or so he claimed at PMQs. He therefore avoided any commitment to building a third runway at Heathrow. And his excuse? Wilful ignorance. Seriously? He hasn’t read it? Given the time and cash the damn thing has gobbled up he might have glanced at the executive summary. Sir Howard has worked his way through twenty million smackers reaching a foregone conclusion. His defenders point out that this money was very well spent because Sir Howard pays scrupulous personal attention to every

James Forsyth

PMQs: David Cameron gives the impression he isn’t sold on a third runway at Heathrow

Harriet Harman began at PMQs by asking about the situation in Tunisia. The mood of the House was appropriately sombre as this issue was discussed and there was much agreement between her and Cameron. But then she turned to the Davies’s report and its recommendation that a third runway should be built at Heathrow, and party politics was resumed. Harman announced that Labour was now backing a third runway, and challenged Cameron to do the same. He dodged, hiding behind the threat of judicial review. Harman then cracked a series of good jokes at his expense, chastising him for ‘being bullied by Boris’ out of doing the right thing for the

At this rate Labour won’t even be a debating society in five years time

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

James Forsyth

PMQs: some revealing exchanges from Cameron on tax credits, broadband and ‘the vow’

In PMQs today, there was no sense of the drama going on outside in Central Lobby as disability campaigners attempted to enter the Chamber. But the exchanges were far more revealing than usual. Harriet Harman asked Cameron about his plans to cut tax credits. Revealingly, Cameron didn’t deny that tax credits were going to be cut or tell Harman to wait until the Budget on July the 8. I think we can take that as something close to confirmation that tax credits will be cut as part of the government’s effort to make £12 billion of savings from the welfare Budget. Indeed, Cameron even endorsed the idea that tax credits

PMQs sketch: He lays roads. He decrees bridges. Is there anything George Osborne can’t do?

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

Steerpike

Backbench ‘plot’ deprives Alan Mak of his favourite spot at PMQs

Unfortunate timing for ambitious new Tory MP Alan Mak to be turned over by the Times today, after he was on the order paper to ask a prominent question at PMQs. Mr S’s fellow diarist at the Times wrote this morning: ‘Alan Mak (Conservative, Havant) has been an MP for only a month and already his self-promotion is getting up people’s noses. Bad enough to send his maiden speech to everyone in Downing Street, he then baggsed the seat behind David Cameron for last week’s prime minister’s questions and with it a brief TV appearance.’ Now Mr S hears there was a concerted effort today not to let Mak take up his

James Forsyth

Osborne’s slick PMQs performance

PMQs was not the normal, partisan slug-fest today. Instead, there were a slew of serious questions on the challenge of Islamic extremism at home and abroad and the migrant crisis. George Osborne, standing in for David Cameron, turned in a solid performance. He seemed unfazed by the occasion. His only misstep was persisting with a pre-scripted joke in response to Hilary Benn’s sombre opening question. But other than that, Osborne’s answers were crisp and politically confident. The themes he chose to emphasise were very Osborne. In response to a Labour question on welfare, he had a British version of Angela Merkel’s warning about how Europe can’t afford not to reform

Osborne’s audition

On Wednesday at Noon, George Osborne will rise to respond for the government at Prime Minister’s Questions. The symbolism of this moment won’t be lost on anyone on the Tory benches. It will be the start of Osborne’s audition for the top job. A few years ago, the idea of Osborne as Prime Minister was—as one of his backers puts it—‘a minority taste’. But now, he continues, ‘it is a mainstream assumption’. What has changed things is the economic recovery and the Tories’ surprise election victory, which has vindicated Osborne’s political strategy. Osborne, I argue in the Mail on Sunday, has also become a better politician in recent years; more

PMQs sketch: Dave gloats in front of Saint Hattie

Poor old Labour. They’re still so crushed by the election result that they put up dead-parrot Harriet Harman against Cameron every Wednesday. Why not let the leadership candidates use him for target practice instead? PMQs is sometimes a contest of ideas and sometimes a contest of insults. Today it was a contest of moral registers. Harman asked about the EU referendum and Cameron scoffed at her colleagues for voting en bloc for a referendum they’ve opposed for five long years. ‘The biggest mass conversion since that Chinese general baptised his troops with a hose pipe.’ Harman was off. She scrambled to the top of Sanctimony Hill and delivered a sermon on the

James Forsyth

PMQs: Harman puts Cameron in his place

Harriet Harman has 16 years on David Cameron and she used that advantage very effectively today. After Cameron replied to her first question on the EU referendum with a string of mocking quips about Labour’s mass conversion on the subject, Harman scolded him for gloating and told him to ‘show a bit more class’. This dressing down took Cameron aback. For the rest of the session he wasn’t sure whether to tone it down or mock Harman for complaining. With Harman refusing to play along with the usual Punch and Judy show, Cameron turned to the SNP. He took advantage of Angus Robertson’s questions to mock the Nationalists for saying

Steerpike

David Cameron’s intricate knowledge of Chinese Warlords

The Prime Minister was on boisterous from at PMQs today, welcoming the Labour Party’s new found support for an EU referendum in the division lobbies last night. Cameron described it as ‘the biggest mass conversion since that Chinese general baptised his troops with a hosepipe’. The green benches were left baffled to what on earth he was talking about. Mr S, as ever, can shed some light on the matter. General Feng Yu Xiang was a Chinese warlord, known as the ‘Christian General’, who dominated parts of Northern China in the twenties. Born an illiterate peasant in 1882 he converted to Christianity in 1914. Having conquered Beijing in 1928, Feng

PMQs sketch: And they’re back

‘Don’t gloat’. Cameron trotted along to the Commons today with this commandment ringing in his ears. He nearly managed it. But his manner betrayed his state of mind. There was an audible zing, an irrepressible sunniness in his voice as he inaugurated his second term. ‘This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others.’ Rarely has that formula held such a fizzy, cocaine kick. Labour’s acting leader, for now, is Harriet Harman. Is she about to pack it in? She seemed passionless and out of sorts. A scowl kept stealing across her lips as she delivered her joke-free lines. She was like a disgruntled lady mayoress opening a fete

Isabel Hardman

Tory rebels are already starting to cause trouble

David Cameron might have had an enjoyable session teasing Labour at Prime Minister’s Questions, but as soon as he’d finished doing so in his head-to-head with Harriet Harman, he was reminded that winning an election with a majority that is so small means he can’t have fun all the time. Andrew Mitchell stood up to press the Prime Minister on human rights reform, expressing concern about any moves to leave the European Convention on human rights: ‘My right hon. Friend will be well aware that there is considerable concern on both sides of the House at the proposition that Britain might withdraw from the European convention on human rights. Will

James Forsyth

Cameron has a PMQs trump card – he won the election

The first PMQs after an election victory is a moment to savour for a Prime Minister. He knows that the result gives him a trump card he can play again and again. So, it was unsurprising that Harriet Harman made little progress against Cameron. He treated it as a gentle net session, meeting each question with a slightly more aggressive and expansive answer. He did, though, seem slightly discombobulated by Ed Balls’ absence. Early on he made a joke about Balls’ defeat and then looked over to where Balls used to sit to drive the point home, but Balls – of course — wasn’t there. The main event today, though,

Steerpike

The war of Skinner’s seat: SNP allow Dennis to stay

The first PMQs of the new Parliament will kick off shortly and Commons watchers will be looking to see if Dennis Skinner remains in his usual spot. The socialist firebrand, along with fellow members of Labour’s so-called awkward squad, has previously occupied the second opposition front bench — until the SNP’s 56 MPs came along and attempted to oust him. But it appears that peace has broken out. The Sun’s Kevin Schofield reports that an agreement has been done to allow Skinner and Father of the House Gerald Kaufman to remain on the front bench, alongside SNP members. Other members of the awkward squad are not so lucky. As one

The Spectator’s notes | 14 May 2015

David Cameron is taking a bit of trouble to unite his parliamentary party. Having built a coalition outside it last time, he knows he must now build one within. The best way to do this lies to hand. It is to return to the pre-Blair custom of having Prime Minister’s Questions twice a week. Advisers always tell prime ministers not to do this, on the grounds that it is a waste of time and can only expose them to added risk. But in fact it has two good effects. It makes MPs feel much happier, and so discourages plotting. It also makes the Prime Minister the master of every area

David Cameron’s VAT pledge spells disaster for Labour’s new poster campaign

Ed Miliband had a disastrous PMQs today after the Labour leader claimed the Tories would raise VAT, only to have David Cameron deny that he would increase the tax. Besides leaving Miliband lost for words, Cameron’s pledge has also left a massive hole in Labour’s election campaign. It was only yesterday that Ed Balls unveiled a snazzy new poster, which contained a big ‘VAT’ swinging into a warning about the Tories’ plans. With their key line now discredited, will someone find a landfill stuffed with Labour posters in a few days time?

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Oily backbenchers, superwonks wrong-footed and a Tory wall of noise

Cameron expected to walk into a firestorm of mockery at PMQs following his retirement bombshell. Quitter. Lame duck. Get yer pipe-‘n’-slippers. But barely an audible jibe was flung from the Labour benches. The Tories on the other hand greeted Ed Miliband with a roar that scared the pigeons in Parliament Square. Miliband and his superwonks had conceived a brilliant plan. Well, brilliant if you’re a superwonk. All available questions would be used to amass a Great Pyramid of Betrayals out of the PM’s broken promises over five years. Pointless really. Strictly for the bubble. No hope of making ‘the Six’. And Cameron wrong-footed Miliband. Asked to promise not to hike

Ross Clark

Is it really surprising that people think Ed Miliband is more of a toff than David Cameron?

The most remarkable poll of the week was the one which suggested the British public find Ed Miliband more of a toff than David Cameron. It takes something to out-toff an Old Etonian with a patrician air and liking for green wellies. But is it so very surprising? Ed has, after all, just shown himself to be on the friend of wealthy idlers, by hinting that the brunt of tax rises in a Labour government would fall instead on those who work for a living. Ed Miliband began well in the last Prime Minister’s Questions before the election. He noted David Cameron’s direct answer to James Landale’s direction question on his future as

James Forsyth

PMQs: Miliband jumps straight into Cameron’s final trap

In the final PMQs of this session, David Cameron scored his most comprehensive victory. Challenged by Ed Miliband to rule out raising VAT, Cameron got to his feet and simply said ‘yes’. At that point, Miliband’s fox was shot. Cameron then moved from defence to attack, repeatedly challenging Miliband to rule out an increase in National Insurance contributions something that Miliband was not prepared to do. By the end of the exchanges, the Labour benches looked glum and the Tory ones jubilant. In truth, the Labour leader had been set up. The Tories had been planning to rule out raising VAT for some time and had been busy calculating when