We are told that Nick Clegg acts as “Flashman’s fag”. The system also means that the Deputy Prime Minister has his own gofer. His name is Mark Harper. So when the speaker calls “Questions for the Deputy Prime Minister” we have the surreal spectacle of Mr. Harper answering the first two questions. Being a good liberal though, Nick Clegg doesn’t seem to have got the hang of the fagging system and Mr. Harper ends up taking the easy questions, at least in the case of the first one today. It was from a Tory, Gavin Barwell pointing out the discrepancies …
By Paul Walter
| Wed 16th February 2011 - 10:52 pm
Individual cases of unfortunate citizens are often brought up at Prime Minister’s Questions. A very powerful example of this was the subject of the first question today from John Mann (Labour). He cited the case of Gladys Hunt, whose care home fees have recently gone up by the staggering amount of £400 a week. Cameron replied that an extra £2 billion is going into adult care and that he’ll look into Mrs Hunt’s case.
Unusually, a Conservative MP raised the next question about a constituent in dire straits. This was Millie d’Cruz, who suffers from metachromatic leukodystrophy, and whose family …
Dr Sowemimo is co-founder of The Social Liberal Forum network, established in 2008 to promote progressive policies within the Liberal Democrat party. He joined the Labour party in September 2010.
This document is generally very encouraging and forward-looking. Dr Sowemimo identifies a list of areas which were important in the May 2010 post-election period, and from which Labour should learn. These include:
Tone – as in Cameron’s inclusive tone towards Clegg, compared with Brown’s dismissive attitude to Clegg.
For the third week out of the last four, a Liberal Democrat asked the first question at Prime Minister’s Questions. This is turning into a tradition! Yay! This week it was the turn of Roger Williams to go through the charade of asking the PM for an entirely predictable list of his engagements for the day. Rather cleverly, albeit interrupted by some harrying from the Speaker, Roger manage to squeeze in two points: a) the key role played by the Sennybridge ranges and the infantry battle school in his constituency and b) a question about foreign students and universities: “Can …
For the second time in three weeks, a LibDem asked the first question at Prime Minister’s Question time. Bob Russell asked, first of all, for the PM to list his engagements for the day. As usual, there was the same response as there has been for virtually every week since Noah was in short trousers. “This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others and, in addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.” Same question, same answer, every blinking week. It is hard not to have a mite of sympathy with …
Good Lord! Ed Miliband and David Cameron actually agreed on something. They agreed that yesterday’s growth figures were “disappointing”. They even agreed that if you set aside the bad weather impact, the figures were flat over the last quarter. An amazing level of agreement at PMQs! Unheard of!
Miliband asked about the causes of the disappointing figures. Cameron pointed to the UK’s large deficit and the large banking boom and bust. Ed Miliband then asked Cameron to confirm that he still thinks we are “out of the danger zone” (Cameron’s words from 15th December). We are no longer linked with PIG (Portugal, Ireland, Greece), said Cameron.
After Cameron said “If you do not deal with your debts, you will never have growth”, Ed Miliband came back with “If you do not have growth, you will never cut the deficit.” That has to be his best rejoinder ever at PMQs. Cameron dealt with that, however, by quoting the head of the OECD: “if you don’t deal with the deficit you can be assured that there will not be growth because confidence will not recover”.
Wow! A Liberal Democrat MP asked the first question at Prime Minister’s Questions this week.
Andrew George spoke in English, rather than Cornish – which he has been known to speak in the Commons chamber. (Well, all right then, it was only for his maiden speech, I grant you). Anyway, Andrew’s question implied some scepticism about the government’s NHS reform plans, saying it involved a “gamble” which might give “private companies the easy pickings”.
Ed Miliband picked up the PM on the disappointing unemployment figures, especially those for youths. He said they were caused by the government “cutting too far …
The LDV Collective have asked me to add the monthly Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions to my radar screen. When these sessions started they seemed rather manufactured and unnecessary. However, they have evolved into an important part of the Commons’ calendar, covering a wide range of key issues. They are of interest especially for those of us in the Liberal Democrats who are interested in hearing what Nick Clegg has to say in his official capacity, under scrutiny from MPs, in a mercifully Flashman-free environment.
But this will never be like Prime Minister’s Question Time. The chamber is only about a …
Consulting my calendar recently, I was astonished to see that I visited the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election for the first time on 17th and 18th November. A long time ago. I don’t mention this to boast (oh, all right I do!) but to highlight that the Liberal Democrat campaign started in earnest very early. I remember wistfully that “GUILTY” tabloid – that word in red dominating the front page in size 94 font (I think). A classic of understatement.
My return for a couple of days at the beginning of last week confirmed that our campaign was as good as …
Prime Minister’s Question time is getting rather repetitive. But by hook and by crook, Ed Miliband is determinedly clawing his way forward. Today’s was quite an impressive performance from the Opposition leader. He is obviously doing his homework. He certainly gets an “E” for effort.
Cameron’s snarling responses continue rather gratuitously, albeit leavened with some good points.
Today’s session was dominated by banking. Miliband attacked Cameron for breaking promises on bankers’ pay, bank taxation and transparency. It is all Labour’s fault that the government can’t stop large RBS pay awards – they wrote the contract, riposted Cameron.
On Comment is Free, Compass’ Chair Neal Lawson has outlined his ideas for the “good society” which he sees as a vision for the centre left. This follows on from an early December essay entitled “Welcome to New Socialism” in the New Statesman penned with John Harris, which I reviewed previously on Lib Dem Voice.
In his CiF article, Neal Lawson fleshes out his philosophy for the “good society” mentioning Aristotle and the need for a more meaningful existence beyond what he succinctly sums up as our “learn-to-earn-to-spend culture”.
The philosophical bit is all very laudable and nothing with which most …
There was all the seasonal fun of the pantomime thrown in to Prime Minister’s Questions today: “Broad brush”, “Air brush”, “Basil Brush” (Cameron’s description of Miliband) – the coalition leadership depicted as the pantomime horse and, of course, “Look behind you”. It was all there.
Ed Miliband in special sotto voce mode, asked about the unemployment increase of 35,000 saying that, with this, Cameron’s claims of being “out of the danger zone” seem “very hollow”. Cameron went on about something called the Work Programme and said claimants were down and vacancies were up.
Miliband (reverting to his bunged-up “Choones” voice) said that …
A couple of years ago I made a complaint about my MP, Richard Benyon. I feel a shiver of guilt even writing the word “complaint” now. I suppose I am very English about complaints. I don’t like making a fuss. I have bumped into Richard off and on since 1992 and always found him to be “a nice enough cove”, as P.G. Wodehouse might put it. Making a “complaint” about such a harmless fellow just didn’t seem British. But occasionally I feel I must put pen to paper, as I did in this case.
Vince Cable lined up as a “bookend” for the Prime Minister at his question time today. One had a feeling, then, that university funding would be high on the agenda. And so it was.
In the first section of Q&A (with Ed Miliband) I think Miliband edged a points win – perhaps in decimal places. A “Rizla” win – a fag paper’s width between them.
Cameron failed to pick up Miliband on some obvious points. The opposition leader referred to English students likely to have the “highest tuition fees” in the world. But presumably that involves a comparison with tuition fees paid during study in other countries – rather than after graduation as in the case of the government’s proposals, which suggest “graduate contributions” rather than fees.
Miliband also referred to the system causing debt for graduates, but the system really can’t be described as instilling “debt” in the conventional sense. Cameron missed that one also.
In fact, Cameron only seemed to be warming up with Miliband but went on to score some corkers when Labour backbenchers asked further university funding questions.
Quite rightly Miliband highlighted the “80% cut” figure. He seemed more on top of his game this week and made an excellent joke:
Things are so bad that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) is offering his own unique solution to the votes tomorrow. He says that if you run quickly, you can vote both ways. I have to say that if the Kremlin were spying on the Liberal Democrats, we would know why: they want a bit of light relief.
Miliband quoted back David Davis on social mobility and the university funding plans. He also quoted back Cameron from last week “not so much waving but drowning”.
Cameron then gained a bit of composure with this rally (yes, it’s like tennis):
We are introducing a situation where nobody pays fees up front, including part-time students—which is 40% of students—and nobody pays anything back until they are earning £21,000. Under the new system, everyone will pay back less than they pay under the current system—They will pay back less every month; that is the case. The poorest will pay less, the richest will pay more. It is a progressive system, but the right hon. Gentleman has not got the courage of his convictions to back it.
Compass director Neal Lawson and the Guardian’s John Harris have written a very thoughtful and forward-looking article for the New Statesman. It proposes a new direction for the centre left, which they call “New Socialism”.
The authors start from the premise that the Labour party suffered a stunning defeat in May. Currently, they say, the party is “sleepwalking from the car crash”. Old Labour ran out of steam. New Labour ran itself into the sand. Now, however, “the party seems to have switched off”, while “social democracy” dies throughout the world. Labour has “almost forgotten how to think, or even …
We’re now getting an obligatory minimum of four mentions of the “blank sheet of paper” by David Cameron at each Prime Minister’s Questions session. I may be firing off prematurely, but Ed “Blank sheet” Miliband struggled today. Given the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast was generally sanguine, he had weak material to play with. But one wonders: who is he trying to kid?
Ed Miliband pointed out that the OBR say that unemployment will rise next year. This is because they’ve reduced their forecast for unemployment this year and left next year as it was. They’ve reduced the forecast of …
By Paul Walter
| Thu 25th November 2010 - 10:49 pm
There were signs this week that Prime Minister’s Questions was getting serious and considered at long last.
Ed Miliband asked a very anorakky question about the government taking away “all the funding from the highly successful school sport partnerships”
There followed an almost scholarly exchange of statistics which left me none the wiser. Miliband’s stats said Labour improved school sports. Cameron’s said they ruined it. Was Miliband right? Was Cameron right? It was beyond me. Except I did notice that Cameron seemed to be almost exclusively quoting figures on “competitive sports”. Ah. The old Tory Daily Mail rant. “Schools don’t do races …
What a relief! For a change, Prime Minister’s Questions gave more cause for Tories to be uneasy than it did for LibDems. Don’t get me wrong, LibDems care passionately about frontline policing. Of course they do. But the Tories tend to see it as more of a cojones (or should I invent the adjective “cojonal” here?) measurement issue – it’s closer to the nerve with them. So I think there must have been a lot of uncomfortable shifting around on the benches behind David Cameron today. “Squeaky bum time”, as Sir Alex might put it.
Rarely, both the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader had reason to be absent from Prime Minister’s Questions today. So it was dear Harriet versus the Cleggster.
As an added twist, it turned into a “Higher Education Special”, in part spurred by the student demonstrations outside parliament as the session was unfolding. There were no less than ten questions on higher education. My, the Labour whips had been busy. Sadly this meant less time for the constituency issues often raised by MPs.
I witnessed the session live via Twitter, where Nick Clegg received a rather jaundiced reception – to put it mildly. When I look back on the video, it seems to me that Nick Clegg did a remarkably good job of what was probably the most difficult parliamentary session of his career. Indeed, he looked terrified beforehand, as Northern Irish questions overan.
Harman started by asking how Clegg’s April pledge to end university tuition fees was going.
Nick Clegg replied that:
..we have stuck to our wider ambition to make sure that going to university is done in a progressive way, so that people who are currently discouraged from going to university—bright people from poor backgrounds, who are discouraged by the system that we inherited from the right hon. and learned Lady’s Government—are able to do so. That is why our policy is more progressive than hers.
Harman said he hoped he’d tell that to the protestors outside and quoted him saying that fees of £7000 would be a “disaster” – so how would he describe fees of £9,000?
Nick Clegg said that there was a consensus that graduates should pay some contribution and added:
The proposals that we have put forward will mean that those who earn the least will pay much less than they do at the moment—while those who earn the most will pay over the odds to provide a subsidy to allow people from poor backgrounds to go to university—and will, for the first time, end the discrimination against the 40% of people in our universities who are part-time students, who were so shamefully treated by her Government.
Harman, rightly, said that none of the Labour party agree with fees of £9000 a year. I think Harman was spot on when she said that this is not about the deficit. It will be cleared by the time the new tuition fees scheme starts. It’s about the proportion of graduate (what she described wrongly as “student”) funding versus public funding. Clegg was rather disingenuous when he referred to a consensus that graduates should pay “some” contribution. The government plans implies 100% graduate funding in some cases and 80-90% graduate funding in many cases. That’s all but getting rid of public funding.
Harman threw an attempted joke in: “We all know what it is like, Mr Speaker. You are at Freshers’ week. You meet up with a dodgy bloke and you do things that you regret. Is not the truth of it that the Deputy Prime Minister has been led astray by the Tories?”
We all know what that is like do we, Hattie? Ummmm let me think. I didn’t actually meet any dodgy blokes in Freshers’ Week, personally. I spent most of my entire year at University trying to find a dodgy woman but, sadly, failed.
Clegg then had an excellent riposte to Harman’s general thrust:
I know that the right hon. and learned Lady now thinks that she can reposition the Labour party as the champion of students, but let us remember the Labour party’s record: against tuition fees in 1997, but introduced them a few months later; against top-up fees in the manifesto in 2001, then introduced top-up fees. Then Labour set up the Browne review, which it is now trashing, and now the Labour party has a policy to tax graduates that half the Front-Bench team does not even believe in. Maybe she will go out to the students who are protesting outside now and explain what on earth her policy is.
All in all, I thought Clegg did an excellent job of outlining the fairness of the coalition’s plan while obviously being on the back foot, due to going back on the promise.
But an emailer to BBC Live called Robert Taylor put it very well: “Nick Clegg is not breaking his promise to the electorate regarding tuition fees; the LibDems did NOT win the election – had they done so they would not have increased the fees thereby keeping their promise.”
Quite frankly, whatever Nick Clegg does or says on this topic, people will always associate him and the Liberal Democrats with “breaking their promise on tuition fees”.
We can argue until we’re blue in the face that it was a daft promise to make in the first place, that Labour introduced tuition fees and increased them, that politics is the art of the possible, that the government plan is progressive and (as John Hemming has ingeniously put it) “a graduate tax in all but name”.
But, whatever we do or say, still the Tuition Fees Albatross will remain around our necks and that of Nick Clegg in particular for at least a generation. So we need to get used to that.
And for Monty Python fans: no, it doesn’t come with any wafers.
Ed Miliband had an unusually deep voice at Prime Minister’s Questions today. I don’t know whether he had a cold, or perhaps he’d been gargling with liquid chocolate on the advice of his spin doctors. But it sounded as though he could do a passable Barry White voiceover. He started in a very subdued way about “Friends of Yemen” and I was expecting the Speaker to turn down the lights and play “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More” in the background.
Ed Miliband’s main point was about a breakage of trust based on tuition fees. He talked about anger in “Sheffield, Twickenham and Eastleigh” over the betrayal of solemn promises made to vote against increases in tuition fees. A good point – which is difficult, if not impossible, to answer.
Thanks very much to the Liberal Democrat Voice team for giving me the privilege of guest editing the site today. It was a huge pleasure to be able to contact LibDem friends I greatly admire, and then receive back articles which were of high quality and fascinating in equal measure. So many thanks to David B, Duncan, Katy, Mary, Sue, David R, Colin and Gerald for writing such wonderful articles so promptly and to Mark for posting them up and generally advising.
James Lyons of the Daily Mirror tweeted last night to say “Oh dear – lib dems picked wrong weekend to call for curbs on anti-terror measures”.
He referred to a Guardian story about LibDem backbenchers calling for the scrapping of control orders and the limit to detention without charge to be reduced to 14 days.
Well yes, I suppose if you have a hangover this morning and, therefore, impaired thinking faculties, it is easy to hear the news (of the discovery of the toner cartridge bombs on their way to the US) and think “silly, woolly Liberals” for raising their …
These days, Ed Miliband is getting a lot of advice on how to deal with Prime Minister’s Questions. A leaked memo advised him to “get to your feet looking as though you are seizing on something new”, and to ensure that he has a “cheer line” so his speech can be “clipped by the broadcasters”.
David Cameron, of course, reminded Ed Miliband of this advice today. But the best advice came in the form of an example of excellent questioning by Bob Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester.
In the last question today, Bob referred to the “fun and games” that …
Unlike last week, when it took me several days to work it out, I could work out what Ed Miliband was trying to do at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Though she is happily on the road to recovery in hospital, the Labour leader skilfully raised the political spectre of Maggie T.
Miliband started by quoting the Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, about the risk of a “double dip recession”. He asked the PM if Clarke was right – “yes or no?” (which is rapidly turning into Miliband-E’s catchphrase). Cameron very effectively batted that one away by asking Miliband to read out the whole quote from Clarke, which makes clear he was talking about a world recession.
For a moment, it was as if the bottom had fallen out of Miliband’s world just after Cameron had accused him of not having “bottom”). A bit like Enfield and Whitehouse’s characters on Dragon’s Den when one of the dragons asks them a simple but devastating question like “Who is going to buy your pussy cruncher when everyone likes pussies?” and then there is a terrified silence while the two pussy cruncher salesmen start involuntarily pouring perspiration from beneath their armpits. They don’t have an answer.
Well, the only answer Miliband had for Cameron was to ask the same question again. He needed time to think.
Ed Miliband made a reasonably good start at Prime Minister’s questions today. However, ultimately he failed to score a substantive point against David Cameron. Indeed, Ed Miliband painted himself into a corner. He is now basically defending the retention of child benefit for the top 15% earners in the country. Since Osborne’s breakfast announcement of the child benefit changes, up until now, Labour have avoided this stance.
Miliband started his questioning today focusing on the unfairness for families with one earner over £43K losing child benefit against families with two earners of £40K keeping their child benefit. However, he lost this …
Due to the sad and sudden illness of David Cameron’s father, Prime Minister’s Questions had an unexpected, almost surreal, feel to them. Instead of Cameron v Harman it was back to where we were on 21st July: Clegg v Straw.
Adding to the sombre mode, Nick Clegg read out a list of no less than a dozen servicemen who have been killed over the summer, plus a doctor and a policeman who have also perished in the war zone.
The Speaker asked for “pithy” responses from the front bench. This surely could not have been a reference to the Deputy Prime …
Tax is emerging as the next big battleground in the US Congress. George Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” expire at the end of the year. Obama proposes extending them for everyone except those earning over $250,000 (couples) / $200,000 (singles). That means only the top 2% revert to their previous tax rates (about 4 percentage points up on the situation now). The Republicans want all the Bush tax cuts to be maintained and, indeed, extended to everyone.
Well, I suppose we can be relieved that, after simply naysaying all Obama’s proposals for a year, the Republicans have at last come …
An energetic Nick Clegg took Prime Minister’s Questions today. Notice how casually I said that. Only the first Liberal/LibDem leader to take questions (acting) as PM since Lloyd George in the 1920s. Pretty blooming historic, that.
If that was not enough, our cup ran well and truly over with yet another first and, perhaps, unique occasion. Jack Straw at the dispatch box pretending to be Labour leader! Clegg stood in for Cameron because the latter was in the USA. Straw stood in for Harman because she was in Peckham.
Jack Straw probably does bellowing quite well when he hasn’t got a sore …
Once again, Harriet Harman eluded the predictions of such luminaries as the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue and alighted on the unexpected subject of cancer waiting times.
This strikes me as an excellent subject for Harman to choose. Labour introduced a “guarantee” for cancer patients to see a specialist within two weeks of seeing their GP. Most of us know someone who has had cancer and know that the first few weeks of doubt and fear are appallingly traumatic. The two week guarantee is a very “real” target which means a great deal to worried patients and their relatives.
You never know in which direction Harriett Harman is going to pounce at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Take today. Veteran commentators, such as John Pienaar, prior to the session, were unable to predict the two topics she eventually alighted on. She’s got her own patented self-loading googly device which fires her off in any direction, leaving bystanders gasping.
Today she even did that thing one would never predict in the House of Commons. She started with a topic which brought only warm, mushy agreement with the Prime Minister – on domestic violence and the need to retain short sentences in those cases. …
David Allen Tristan,
You're right in the sense that you didn't specifically call for PFI. But you did say "if you can persuade private money to provide the funding on t...
David Garlick Touted as bringing power to people.
Power brought down from Govt sounds good but power still not reaching the lowest possible levels in our Communities....
Tristan Ward @ David Allen
"PFI won’t help stop the planet burning"
Who said anything about PFI - I didn't.
The private money that is building (not enough) house...
Joey Vimsante I think the EU and UK needs to support not for profit, social media platforms that put the interest of the public, vulnerable people, young people, and nation a...
Nick Baird With regard to client-side image scanning, the danger of mission creep are real, but I have other concerns. One is whether this is truly a practical and effecti...
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Brechtian television: Leo McKern in Galileo (1964)
Good news on political donations?
Conference booked
Are Labour going to cross another red line?
David Allen 
David Garlick 
Tristan Ward 
Joey Vimsante 
Nick Baird 