Pmqs

I have rarely heard the House as loud as it was after David Cameron’s ‘calm down, dear’ put down to Angela Eagle. The Labour benches roared at the Prime Minister and Cameron turned puce, while the Liberal Democrats looked distinctly uncomfortable. There is already a rather over-blown debate going on about whether the remark was sexist or not. But whether or not it was, it was certainly ill-judged. It was a tad too patronising and directing it at one of the more junior members of the shadow made it seem bullying. The Labour benches were heckling Cameron more than usual today, a result of him losing his rag with Ed

Cameron was at pains to disguise it, but his impatience finally gave way at PMQs today. What a contrast with the last 24 hours. The nemesis of Gaddafi, the terror of Tripoli, the champion of the rebels, the moral conscience of the West, the world’s latest and greatest international tyrant-buster had to return to earth, and to the House of Commons, to deal with enterprise zones, disability benefits, carbon trading price structures and all the belly-aches of the provincial grockles who put him where he is. What a chore. Ed Miliband had a pop at him on police numbers. The Labour leader asked a clear and simple question. ‘Will there

If you want to get an MP going, just ask them what they think of IPSA — the new expenses watchdog. The body is hated: when Cameron joked at PMQs this week that it should be relocated to Croydon there was laughter across the House. IPSA is regarded as rude and inefficient. When Tory MPs were in a particularly grumpy mood before Christmas, David Cameron went to the ’22 and promised that IPSA would either have to mend its ways or be mended. Today’s revisions to the rules by IPSA (£) will go some way to addressing the concerns of MPs. The old rules only allowed children to be treated

Friskier than a spaniel. That’s how Cameron seemed at today’s PMQs. The Gadaffi debacle has given him a Falklands bounce – prematurely one senses – and he was glowing like freshly made toast from the praise lavished on his performance on Monday. He seemed to want to share the good cheer with everyone else, even his opponents, and he offered thanks to Ed Miliband for his contribution, ‘which I thought was extremely powerful.’ Miliband sensed that attacking Cameron today would be like serving a writ on a man at his birthday party. He tried to pester the PM for ‘removing the mobility element from DLA’ but Cameron cut him down

With Libya in metaphorical meltdown and with Japan close to the real thing, it was remarkable how little foreign affairs impinged on PMQs today. Ed Miliband led on the NHS and facetiously asked if Cameron planned any amendments to his health bill following the LibDem spring conference. Cameron replied by accusing Labour of wasting £250m on phantom operations. Would he apologise for this scandalous blunder? Miliband, unsurprisingly, declined even to acknowledge the invitation. The session developed on these familiar, solipsistic lines. Keen to harry the PM on bureaucracy Miliband stumbled on a Cameron quote decrying ‘pointless topdown re-organisations’ of the NHS. He pulled it up by the roots, shook off

Today’s PMQs was full of verve and bite. A welcome change after last week’s washout. It’s all getting a bit tasty between Ed and Dave. The Labour leader opened with Libya and after making ritual noises about wanting to support the government’s foreign policy he admitted he found it hard not to voice his ‘concern about incompetence’. Nice tactics there. Pose as a statesman and stick the blade in under the table. But Cameron wasn’t standing for it. ‘I don’t want to take a lecture from Labour about dealing with Libya and Gadaffi,’ he said furiously. And the cheers from the Tory benches redoubled when he called for Labour to

It was Monty Python without the jokes. The focus of PMQs today veered surreally between crisis in north Africa and early swimming pool closures in Leeds. The session opened in Security Council mode with Ed Miliband politely asking the PM to brief us on the humanitarian disaster evolving in Libya’s border-zone. Cameron went into his statesman-of-the-year routine and announced that HMS York had docked in Benghazi with medical supplies.   At such moments the imperial ghosts of the Commons seem momentarily reawakened. Ed Miliband sounds like some Victorian stooge asking the Foreign Secretary to reassure the nation that an uprising in a far-flung oriental possession is being energetically suppressed. Having

Too much time at the barbers. That’s the opposition’s problem. Ed Miliband showed up at PMQS today after a long morning lounging in the chair having his hair coiffed and burnished. His darkly gleaming scalp now looks like the kind of thing toffs scrape their boots on after a morning’s shooting. And that’s precisely what the Prime Minister proceeded to do with him today. With no time for a strategy meeting beforehand Ed had just grabbed a list questions from the last PMQs-but-three.   He began by having a go at Cameron on youth unemployment. But we know how Cameron deals with that one. Been a problem for decades, old