Who won?
Rupa Huq: Harriet Harman I’d say. She did not manage to extract any answer on the two week cancer promise. Cameron just looked smug and I really find the mock indignation thing irritating
Stephen Longden: Probably Cameron. Harman surprisingly (in my opinion) chose not to question the government on this morning’s unemployment figures which show a worryingly large increase in part-time work, making the headline figures look better than they really are and symptomatic of a highly fragile recovery. The exchanges on Northern Ireland were dignified but Cameron responded well on the health questions, putting him on the electorally popular side of a dividing line that Harman set up. Harman’s attempts to distinguish between admin costs next year (which she claims will increase) and admin costs in future years (which Cameron claims will come down) were too subtle for the occasion.
Conor Ryan: A relatively low-key score draw, which could have been a Harman win. Harriet Harman started with a non-partisan question on Northern Ireland, allowing David Cameron to update the House – it was right to start on this given the violence of recent days, and while Cameron clearly expected her to ask a follow-up, she quickly turned to health.
Her question on whether or not the Tories planned to keep Labour’s cancer target was good and sharp, and Cameron blustered twice as she pressed the issue. However, she was wrong then to shift from the cancer target to asking about whether admin costs would rise in the NHS as a result of the Tory changes. They will with GP commissioning, but shifting tack allowed Cameron the chance to sound off about Labour increasing bureaucracy. She should have found three other ways to press the cancer or waiting list target (perhaps going on the A&E 4 hour target) and answering the nonsense from Cameron about ‘some people needing to be seen in less than two weeks’. Harman could have really discomforted Cameron.
Best questions, answer, comment or joke?
RH: I found all references to the “Big Society” vomit-inducing. One of the early ones from a new female Tory MP referring to Loughborough University rag week got Cameron to say in response “Students can get a bad press” which made me thing of his Bullingdon days.
SL: It’s clear that the purpose of the Tories’ ‘Big Society’ campaign was to provide the government with a neverending supply of planted questions at PMQs. Nicky Morgan and Angie Bray get joint credit for reading the briefing sheets when they both got the ‘Big Society’ into their questions, asking Cameron to praise Loughborough University RAG and Generations Together in Ealing respectively. Whilst these sorts of backbench questions are not new, branding any community project as part of a new government initiative takes brown-nosing to a new level.
Best backbencher
RH: Memorable question on Facebook and if Cameron would meet Mark Zuckerberg so that Raoul Moat fan-groups can be removed. Not really answered by Cameron who instead condemned Moat. This shouldn’t be called “Prime Minister’s Questions” it is more, to borrow Harriet Harman’s phrase, “Prime Minister dodges the Question”.
Interesting also to see Valerie Vaz (Keith’s sister and former Ealing councillor) raise BSF and apply it to a school in her constituency but the backbencher who got the biggest reaction was the Monmouth Tory MP (David Davies) asking about IPSA. Typical of these self-interested MPs to be preoccupied with their own pockets. The fact that the latest system was done by a consultancy that charged £85,000 which is more than an MP’s salary can’t have cheered them much.
SL: Hugh Bayley asked whether unemployment in the north of England will be higher or lower in a year’s time. Despite being fobbed off with a weak answer from Cameron, it was an approach which Harman could have taken to great effect. Not only questioning the government’s fiscal policies but also highlighting the reliance on the OBR’s projections for economic growth, which only have to be slightly erroneous to undermine the Government’s projections of private-sector job growth.
CR: Best backbencher and quip was probably Valerie Vaz, who had a sharp line about Michael Gove’s “I am sorry apology tour” as she got across the reality of his cuts to Building Schools for the Future effectively. It was surprising that more Labour backbenchers didn’t take up the issue. Lindsay Roy had a go, but was trying a bit too hard to be clever, suggesting that Gove should be disciplined. Incidentally, Cameron misled the House when he said Labour did nothing for Primary Capital: Labour really needs to get across the full extent of its capital improvements since 1997 which led to 4000 new or refurbished schools, around 1500 completely new.