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 anymore because they don’t want the losers to be disappointed”. It would be great if it were true.
And then Miliband sat down and other MPs asked questions. That threw me. But later Miliband popped up again and we had round two – which ended up with the classic “Punch and Judy politics”.
The second time he asked about transparency for bankers’ salaries above £1million. Cameron seemed to be saying that he agreed with Miliband on the transparency issue but wanted to reveal the salaries at the same time as other European countries do so, as recommended by the Walker report (allegedly). In other words, something of a kick into the long grass. Miliband quoted back Vince Cable on the subject: “Transparency is key to creating confidence in any commitment from our banks to behave more responsibly on pay and bonuses.”
But Cameron wasn’t budging and we were launched into a very tiresome comparison of the Miliband and Cameron careers as minor bag carriers in the Treasury. Cameron listed out all the misdemeanours which Miliband witnessed from his position of tea boy – boom and bust, not regulating banks, Fred the Shred etc. But I think Miliband had a brilliant retort to all that because, as he pointed out, Cameron was in the Treasury on Black Wednesday. Unfortunately that retort got lost in all the noise.
And then, all pretence of a new anorakky approach to PMQs was finally thrown to the wind with Cameron’s final retort, delivered in the full knowledge that Miliband had no questions left:
The right hon. Gentleman has nothing to say about the deficit. He has nothing to say about regulation. He is just the nowhere man of British politics.
I’d venture to suggest that final salvo is the sort of gratuitous nonsense which puts people off politics. But there you are.
I ought to mention that Cameron managed to squeeze in at least three mentions of Ed Miliband’s “blank sheet of paper”. That one will run and run.
And for those of us who are thinking that the government’s constant refrain of “Labour got us into this mess” will one day wear thin and be withdrawn from circulation, there was reason for despair from Cameron:
The Opposition do not like to hear about the mess they left this country in. Just in case they are in any doubt, we will be talking about the mess they have made not in five months’ time, but in five years’ time too.
Oh dear. Pass the pearl-handled revolver and the whisky, please.
Other snippets were:
- Mike Crockart, LibDem MP for Edinburgh West, is growing a moustache. So is Tom Brake MP. So are members of the Prime Ministers’ protection squad. Should we be concerned? No. It is all in aid of advancing awareness of prostate cancer in November – it’s called “Movember”.
- Oliver Letwin is starting to look like a strawberry. So is David Tredinnick. Should we be concerned? Probably. Especially when David Strawberry – sorry Tredinnick – asked a question with apparent Chinese undertones about clearing Parliament Square of protesters for the Royal Wedding.
- We think we’ve got problems with internal dissent about tuition fees. But you ought to know that William Cash MP is revolting. Already. About Europe.
- Julian Huppert, LibDem member for Cambridge, asked about the beneficial effects of foreign students coming to this country.
- There was a priceless example of a Speaker’s put-down. Gavin Williamson (Conservative) who looks like a sixth former to me, started to ask a question about Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper bullying Ed Miliband. But the Speaker quite angrily told him to “resume his seat” because his question was not about government policy. Quite right too.
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23 Comments
“And for those of us who are thinking that the government’s constant refrain of “Labour got us into this mess” will one day wear thin and be withdrawn from circulation”
Well he couldn’t have done it without the help of his banker friends, but Brown and Labour did get us into this mess and were rightly punished for it at the general election.
It can be used for a while and will be used in next years elections.
The fact is though that the public won’t stand for it as an excuse after a few years of a new government in charge and Barack Obama’s thrashing at the midterms proves blaming it all on the last guy isn’t a tenable long term strategy.
I think possibly Milliband is right about the sports money. There seems to be a string of athletes lining up to keep this particular ring fence and I fear sports will drop down the agenda as funds become tight. I’m also worried that the total money going to schools will not in fact go up as any rise will consist of money taken from them in other ways such as this.
Good on the speaker, two weeks in a row now. However I’d love to see him remind the PM to answer the question asked. It’s all becoming shades of Blair with both Clegg last week and Cameron every week constantly avoiding questions.
Excellent statement by the way..
“But you ought to know that William Cash MP is revolting.” Enough said !
PMQs “serious and considered”? That would be fantastic, but I’m not holding my breath. It seems programmed into the DNA of the Westminster politician to revert to this awful braying point-scoring question-avoiding nonsense despite repeated protestations that what they really want is mature politics.
John Leech has grown a moustache too!
Cameron is floundering at PMQs in my view.
He’s getting haughty with Milliband far, far too quickly and for him to attack Milliband’s record as an adviser in the Treasury – with a record as bad as his supporting Black Wednesday – was a major own goal.
Cameron’s problem is the one that those close to him know only too well. He has literally no grasp of detail (and doesn’t want to know) so has to resort to insults to defend his own position.
He’s well on the way to becoming a bit of a joke within the next 12 months.
Gove also talks exclusively about ‘competitive sport’ Its taken over 20 years to get a balance of what is described as ‘sport’ in schools in order to get girls ‘playing sport’ Girls refuse to do daft things like run over muddy fields in the middle of winter, but will dance all afternoon in the gym (as they will do rediculous things like getting up a 6am on a winters morning to ‘muck out’ if shown a pony. In Leicestershire we now do horsy ‘competitive sport’. It does not need a genius to make dance an inter-schools competitive sport as well.
As for the money, I trust Gove no more than I trust my pet rattlesnake.
A bit dull this week, wasn’t it? The school sports question, which is a concern for a segment in the country, was the first time I’ve seen Cameron give a reasoned and factual reply. In doing so, I thought he managed to defend the policy quite well.
Bankers’ bonuses is an extremely serious issue. Two years ago, when the extent of the banking failure became apparent, Cameron promised “a day of reckoning for bankers, but not right now.” [paraphrased].
Two years later, the opportunity to require pay and bonus transparency arises again – and again he says, “not now.”
If not now, when?
@DavidPollard “Girls refuse to do daft things like run over muddy fields in the middle of winter,”
That’s funny because my daughter has been doing precisely that regularly since the age of six (and enjoying it) and only last Saturday I watched hundreds of girls from three counties running over muddy fields in South Park Oxford.
Excellent performance by Ed Miliband at PMQs. His television experience gives him the ability to pick exactly the topics that will embarrass Cameron, that will have “legs” and will run and run. After every PMQs the media takes up the issues that he has raised and subjects the coalition policy to rigorous scrutiny.
Ed Miliband is right. Cameron is going to come to regret Gove’s slashing of the School Sports Partnership’s £162 million budget. Sporting activity in schools increased under the Labour government. According to the Youth Sports Trust the average number of sports offered by schools has risen from 14-19, but these incude such activities as cycling, golf, skateboarding, angling etc; not the traditional competitive sports which the Tories favour and which Cameron was referring to. Who cares whether they are competitive, when the country’s children have soaring obsity levels? The important thing is to get kids to be active, whether in competition with each other or not. Not everyone is suited to competitive sports anyway. Giving the money directly to schools is not the answer either if it is not to be ring fenced. In a time of huge austerity for education there will be too many pressures on schools’ budgets and sport will simply be one of a huge number of competing demands for the money.
Paul Walter, if you really were made none the wiser by the statistical arguments, Cathy Newman’s Factcheck blog on Channel Four provides an excellent examination of the numbers and Cameron’s selective use of statistics.
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/school-sports-cuts-david-camerons-selective-statistics/5114
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3246756/Lib-Dem-leader-Nick-Clegg-I-am-toast.html
I see it is being reported that even Nick Clegg now believes he and his job will be toast next year and Liberal Democrats will lose the AV vote.
Surly if Nick realises the damage he is doing the party, the honourable thing to do, would be to step down and allow someone else to try and salvage the party from the mess he has created, before it’s to late
If Nick Clegg is still in power come the May elections, it will cost the party AV and a lot of local councillors to lose their seats.
Nick Clegg will lose the parties local elections and AV, the same way Gordon Browne Cost labour the General election.
@ matt
Honestly I don’t think it matters who runs the party from here on in.
My Granny’s summary comes to mind ‘you”ve made your bed so lie in it’
Let’s also remind ourselves who owns the Sun and where their sympathies
lie.
@Emsworthian
Let’s also remind ourselves who owns the Sun and where their sympathies
lie.
Agreed, Cameron, Coulson and Murdoch must be laughing in their boots.
Clegg made it so easy for them, They won’t even need Ashcroft to fund elections in Sheffield for at least the next 10 years, because of the amount of “Own Goals” Clegg has managed to score already.
Cameron and Gove are even more restrictive in what they include than is suggested here. They actually only use data on ‘competitive sports between schools’. My daughter’s village primary school has its own inter-house competitions for a variety of sports at different times of the year. They involve all pupils at some stage, rather than just the elite few, and are incredibly competitive. For Gove and Cameron, they don’t count at all.
Oh, and could someone please make an FOI request to find out how many times Cameron, Osborne or Gove represented their schools in competitive sport (or maybe even Pickles). I can guess the answer and yet they all consider they were priveleged to have excellent educations.
@Nigel
“Oh, and could someone please make an FOI request to find out how many times Cameron, Osborne or Gove represented their schools in competitive sport (or maybe even Pickles)”
I could just imagine Pickles at sports day, competing in the Egg and Spoon race. Doubt he would have got to the finish line though, with out eating his Boiled Egg.
@ Paul Walter
“We think we’ve got problems with internal dissent about tuition fees. But you ought to know that William Cash MP is revolting. Already. About Europe.”
Christmas is coming and, like Marley’s ghost, Bill Cash has arisen to admonish Cameron for being a scrimshank about those beastly Europeans and Cameron begins to look more and more like the hapless Major. If the Lib Dems wish to deflect criticism from Clegg and his betrayals they should focus on the promises Cameron breaks over Europe. He has already angered the Europhobes by refusing to give them their beloved referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Now that’s one promise he’s broken already. And his last appearance on the mainland looked very flaky indeed. Europe would be a very convenient issue over which you could disentangle yourselves from your Molotov/Ribbentrop pact.
A pickled egg?
I would Imagine Osbourne and Cameron excelled at sports day as well, probably competing in Welly Wanging.
It gave them great experience and a good footing for the Liberal Lobbing that they are doing now.
The PM seemed a little well-refreshed to me. I am sure he made a reference to “prostrate” cancer.
“I could just imagine Pickles at sports day, competing in the Egg and Spoon race.”
Anybody see Charles Clarke choosing to raise the sports funding issue on Andrew Neil last night? I never knew there was funding for sumo….
sports funding is fast becoming a joke,
How on earth we expect our athletes to do well as the 2012 Olympics is beyond me.
Mind you I can just imagine as we come close to the drawing stages of the mens 3000 Meters which is normally won by one of the Kenyans.
A Tory Toff in a Blue and white stripped beanie hat, comes out of the blue, ploughing down the home straight, with his egg and spoon, to take it at the wining line.
lmao
The Coalition’s new sports policy in action.
The hundred meters trample dodge.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/student-protests-police-under-fire
Competitive Arctic kettling competitors show the Coalition’s commitment to sport for all. (see 7:14 into video)
I am really not liking the way Edd Milliband is delivering his speeches.
I was just watching him then on BBC news.
I don’t know whether he is having speech coaching by the same person who coached Tony Blaire, but the whole mannerism in the way he delivers a speech shows huge similarities of how Blaire would do it, using the same body language, exaggerated pronunciations with timely pauses.
I don’t think it will do him many favours if people have flash backs to blaire whilst he is speaking.
Blaire did have charisma in the early days, But Milliband needs to find his own style if he is to succeed as a good opposition leader and public speaker.