Rarely has Ed Miliband appeared as commanding as he did at today’s PMQs. A telling moment came when, as David Cameron feebly attempted to deflect a question on last week’s botched energy announcement, Miliband quipped: “If he wants to swap places, I’m very happy to do so.” The Labour leader is finally starting to sound like a prime minister-in-waiting. He followed that up with a fine joke about “the great train snobbery”: “It’s not the ticket that needs upgrading, it’s the Chancellor”.
After struggling with questions on the energy shambles and the West Coast Mainline fiasco, Cameron, sounding ever more like Gordon Brown, implored Miliband to “talk about the real issues”. In an effective riff, he declared: “inflation – down, unemployment – down, crime – down, waiting lists – down, borrowing – down.” Cameron added, in what sounded like an allusion to tomorrow’s growth figures (which he will have seen), that “the good news will keep coming”. But if, as expected, Britain officially exits recession tomorrow, he should be wary of boasting too much. The Q3 figures will be artificially inflated by the bounce back from the extra bank holiday in the previous quarter (which reduced growth by an estimated 0.5 per cent) and by the inclusion of the Olympic ticket sales (which are expected to add around 0.2 per cent to GDP). So, if the ONS announces that the economy grew by 0.8 per cent in the third quarter, the underlying rate of growth will be just 0.1 per cent. In addition, many forecasters expect the economy to contract in the fourth quarter. Cameron could soon have a “triple-dip recession” on his hands.
It was a Labour MP who eventually asked the question that is preoccupying Tory minds today: will the government grant prisoners the right to vote? Cameron’s unambiguous response was that “prisoners are not getting the vote under this government”, with the PM suggesting that MPs could vote again on the matter. His words leave the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, who this morning argued that the government should comply with the European Court of Human Right’s ruling on the subject, distinctly lacking in authority.
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