Pmqs

Nick Clegg comfortably got through his first appearance standing in for David Cameron at PMQs. He was helped by a poor performance by Jack Straw, who made Neil Kinnock look like a model of concision. As Clegg said mockingly at one point, ‘that wasn’t a question it was a sort of dissertation.’ In his final response to Straw, Clegg attacked him for his role in the ‘illegal invasion of Iraq.’ Now, Clegg has long called the invasion of Iraq illegal. But it is a different matter to do so when standing in for the Prime Minister and speaking from the Treasury bench in the House of Commons. That implies it

Speaker Bercow needs to be stopped. His management of PMQs is becoming a scandal. Having menaced MPs last night with a speech complaining about unruly behaviour in the house, (‘the screech of scrutiny’), he added a coded threat to sin-bin any member who offends his sense of decorum. Today he found the chamber as quiet as a slapped puppy. Perhaps that delighted him. It dismayed viewers at home. We watched the dullest PMQs of the year. Perhaps for several years.   The exchanges between Harman and Cameron lacked tempo or bite. Both leaders sensed that their parties had been doped with fear by Bercow. With the house becalmed, the leaders

The unthinkable has happened. I’ve started to admire Batty Hattie’s performances at PMQs. Her career may be over, her party may be trashed, her movement may drift leaderless, and her colleagues’ reputation may have been shot to pieces but Hattie always turns up and gives it everything. Nature has not overburdened her with talent. She can’t count. She can hardly speak. She reacts to events about as quickly as a self-timing oven but she has epic quantities of pluck. Every week she pounds out into the surf, like a battleship equipped for the last war but two, and heads for the centre of the fray where she refuses to sink

After years of fury and rancour in the chamber, the mood at PMQs was sober and rational today. (Personally, I hope it hots up again soon but the armistice certainly made a change). Under no pressure whatever, Cameron roamed at will over the full spectrum of government policy and gave intruiging hints about future priorities. Tory backbencher Philip Davies urged him to cancel the subscriptions of 4000 convicts signed up for Sky TV. The PM didn’t seem bothered by this. They may not get the vote but they’ll carry on getting Adam Boulton. Cameron is more concerned by the 40 percent of prisoners who celebrate the end of their sentence

The shootings in Cumbria this morning meant that today’s PMQS was always going to be a subdued affair. David Cameron was impressive, though.  You wouldn’t have guessed it was his first time answering questions and he controlled the pace of the session expertly. There were fewer people on the front bench than last week meaning that Nick Clegg was more visible than he had been during the opening of the Queen’s Speech debate. Clegg sat to Cameron’s right while Hague was on his left. Harriet Harman asked some cleverly constructed questions, her ones protesting at plans for those accused of rape to be given anonymity are never going to be

The choppers, and the whoppers, were flying at Westminster today. David Cameron invited the prime minister to try a spot of accountability at PMQs. Would he admit that he scrimped on transport aircraft in Helmand? Brown, with breathtaking cheek and not a little rhetorical dexterity, flipped the question upside down. ‘I do not accept that our commanding officers gave the wrong advice,’ he said and insisted that he never sent underequipped troops into battle. He clarified this with a smokescreen. ‘I take full responsibilitiy but I also take the advice of our commanding officers.’ Here was the morality of the restaurant freeloader, accepting the food but passing the bill down