The final PMQs of the year is always a daunting occasion for both party leaders; a poor performance risks their MPs going home for Christmas disgruntled with their leadership. Last year, a duff joke about coalition disunity sunk Ed Miliband as David Cameron quipped, “It’s not that bad, it’s not like we’re brothers or anything”. This year, happily for the Labour leader, there was no repeat.
After asking Cameron to update the Commons on British operations in Afghanistan, Miliband turned to the subject of food banks, asking the PM whether he was concerned that they had increased six-fold in the last three years. Cameron responded by ill-advisedly hailing food bank volunteers as part of the “big society”, prompting Miliband to reply, in one of his best lines for weeks, “I never thought the big society was about feeding hungry children in Britain.”
Cameron attempted to defend the coalition’s record by pointing to the council tax freeze and the increase in the personal allowance as evidence of the action he had taken to protect living standards. But in a reminder of just how politically toxic the decision to cut the top rate of tax remains, Miliband replied that Cameron had imposed a “strivers’ tax” on low and middle income families (a reference to George Osborne’s plan to uprate tax credits by just 1 per cent over the next three years), whilst giving an average tax cut of £107,500 to people earning over a million pounds a year. Expect Labour to take every opportunity to remind the public of this fact ahead of the official introduction of the reduced top rate (50p to 45p) in April.
Finding his stride, Miliband said Cameron was “back to his old ways” after reports that he had an “intense conversation” with Rebekah Brooks last weekend. “No doubt they’re both looking forward to the Boxing Day hunt,” he added. Miliband ended by declaring that no one now believed Cameron could be a “one nation” prime minister, to which Cameron, in a flash of wit, replied: “it wouldn’t be Christmas without the repeats.” He ended by turning to what remains his strongest suit – the deficit – accusing Miliband of offering more of the “something-for-nothing culture that got us into this mess in the first place.”
Both leaders played to their strengths today. While polls show that the public believe that the coalition is cutting too far, too fast, they also show that they continue to regard the cuts as necessary and blame Labour more than the coalition for them. The economic debate is finely poised. The next year will begin to show in whose favour it will be resolved.
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