Ahead of the summer recess, both David Cameron and Ed Miliband needed a win at today’s PMQs to send their troops away happy and it was Cameron who rose to the occasion, delivering his strongest performance for months. The longer the session went on, the more confident he seemed to grow, quipping that he longer needed Lynton Crosby’s advice to “defeat a divided and useless Labour Party” and advising Miliband to “move the two people next to you [Ed Balls and Andy Burnham] and…do it fast.”
Miliband had begun by challenging Cameron on NHS staffing levels in response to yesterday’s Keogh report but a well-briefed Cameron pointed out that eight of the 11 hospitals placed in special measures now had more nurses than in 2010 and that 10 had more clinical staff. A somewhat deflated Miliband then questioned Cameron over Lynton Crosby and plan cigarette packaging but, once again, the PM had come well-armed. Declaring that the decision was made by him and Jeremy Hunt alone, he noted that the last Labour government had taken the same view and produced a letter from Andy Burnham to Tessa Jowell noting that “no studies have shown that introducing plain packaging would cut the number of young people smoking”.
He again dodged Miliband’s question on whether he had ever had a conversation with Crosby on cigarette packaging, merely stating that he had never been “lobbied” by him, but swiftly returned fire by pointing out that Miliband had predicted that unemployment “would get worse, not better” this year. “Isn’t it time he withdraws that and admits he was wrong!”, he cried.
Miliband squeezed in a neat dig about Cameron being “the PM for Benson and hedge funds” but Cameron, brimming with confidence, ended with a flourish of rare force:
We are getting to an end of a political session where the deficit is down, unemployment is down, crime is falling, welfare is capped, Abu Qatada is back in Jordan … every day this country is getting stronger and every day he is getting weaker.
As the Tory benches cried “more! more!, Labour MPs looked on glum-faced.
Cameron’s rollcall of achievements was an apt summary of why the Tories believe the political tide has turned in their favour. An economic recovery finally appears to be underway and the public has tolerated, rather than revolted against austerity. As Cameron noted, it is now February since Miliband asked a full set of questions about the economy. The fear among Labour MPs was always that their party’s poll lead owed more to distaste for the coalition than it did to enthusiasm for them. Now, as growth returns, the danger is that it will crumble.
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