Politics

PMQs–Final roar before the summer break

Ed Miliband tries to take on the "Prime Minister for Benson and Hedgefunds" in today's PMQs.

July 17, 2013
Feeling the heat: Lynton Crosby (Image: Cobber27)
Feeling the heat: Lynton Crosby (Image: Cobber27)

This was the last PMQs before the House rose for the summer break. Number Ten has been in a bullish mood lately. The fine weather, Wimbledon, economy on the turn, employment up—all of these things have given Tory high command cause for optimism.



So when Edward Miliband rose to the Dispatch box today, it was with the intention of pricking that bubble of hubris. In that task, Miliband failed.

As he rose, the Leader of the Opposition was met by an incoherent Commons roar. His first question concerned the report by Sir Bruce Keogh on the state of Britain's hospitals, which was released yesterday. The report, said Miliband, found "inadequate numbers of nursing staff," in the NHS. What is the PM going to do about it? Cameron replied, saying his government was putting a further £12.7bn into the NHS and that in the last year, the number of nurses has increased by 900.


No, said Miliband, the reality is that there are 4,000 fewer nurses than when Cameron came into office. At this, the Prime Minister did something rare for PMQs: he said something that was both subtle and interesting, in this case on the subject of the assumed link between the efficient functioning of a hospital and the number of nurses employed. There is no such link, said the PM. As proof, he said that several of the hospitals that have been placed into special measures, the most stringent level of supervision to which a failing hospital can be subjected, have encountered trouble even though the numbers of nurses employed there have been increasing.

Miliband replied saying that the Government's reforms were diverting money from patient care and for this reason the numbers of nurses was declining. But changing tack he asked whether the Prime Minister had been influenced by Lynton Crosby over cigarette packaging. Government plans to force cigarette companies to sell their products in plain packs have been dropped. Crosby, the PM's strategist, runs a company that advises big tobacco—did he influence the Government's decision?

The PM replied that no, there was no untoward influence whatsoever, and isn't it revealing that under the last Labour government Tessa Jowell (Lab, Dulwich), then Secretary of State for Health, wrote a letter advising precisely the same policy? "I'd suggest a different line of questioning," said Cameron. But it is perhaps a more threatening line than the PM would like to acknowledge. Andy Coulson, the PM's former media adviser, brought difficulties for No 10. Might Cameron be facing the same situation with Crosby?

When Miliband put the question about Crosby again, but in a slightly different form, Cameron went on the attack, wheeling out a stump speech on Labour and the Unions—that's the real scandal, said the PM. Miliband called these "weasel words," shouting his displeasure that Cameron had failed to answer the question, calling him the "Prime Minister for Benson and Hedgefunds," a line intended specifically to be included in reports such as this.

The House then descended into one of its periods of incoherent shouting. Eventually, through the barrage of noise came the PM's voice, saying that Miliband was in "no position to lecture anyone on standards in public life," before going on to taunt him for getting his economic projections wrong.

"He always stands up for the wrong people," shouted back Miliband. Cameron countered with a list of things he said his government was getting right: unemployment was coming down, the economy recovering, welfare under control and Abu Qatada back in Jordan. "Every day this country is getting stronger, and he is getting weaker," bellowed the PM. The House roared.

There were further questions about Lynton Crosby, and also from Sir Peter Tapsell (Con, Louth and Horncastle), who wondered whether the Prime Minister and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, discussed the role played by the single European currency in prolonging the present downturn in southern Europe. The PM agreed that the currency was a concern.

Today's PMQs was more significant than most. There is much talk in Westminster of that mystical political gold that is "momentum"—of who has it and who does not. It is highly desirable, the thinking goes, to have it going into the summer break. The PM is convinced that it's with him. On this showing, that would seem to be the case.

As one lobby hack put is as the gallery was emptying: "Bit of a battering, that."