Who won?

Once again arguments over the NHS dominated PMQs this week. And once again David Cameron’s slipperiness and forthright rhetoric mean that it is hard to give Ed the victory that the substance of his argument deserved, even as Cameron threw his full weight behind Andrew Lansley’s toxically unpopular health and social care bill. In particular Cameron’s final array of glowing statistics regarding NHS waiting times and lists left a distinctly fishy odour in the air, but the sheer front of his delivery regardless of the veracity of the content is difficult for Ed to overcome.

Best comment?

There isn’t likely to be a more succinct demolition of the Tory NHS reforms than the impeccably polite drive by assassination carried out by Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, yesterday morning. The mangled plans, she said, will ‘result in a health service that certainly will never match the health service that we have at the moment or at least had 12 months ago’. This led Ed onto his best comment, asking ‘If he wants the voice of doctors to be heard in the NHS, why doesn’t he listen to them?’ The barely stifled groans of the Tory benches at the mere mention of Clare Gerada’s name only served to highlight the contempt in which the reasonable objections of professionals to the bill are held.

Best backbencher?

Peter Bone’s bemusement at children’s minister Sarah Teather’s continued presence on the government benches was perhaps the sharpest intervention of the day from the backbenches. Teather’s absence from the welfare vote last week can’t help but fuel Tory suspicions that Lib Dems are having their cake and eating in government. For Teather, this may turn out to be no laughing matter. Again.

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Simon Jeffrey is events and membership officer at Progress