It was said of Tony Blair that he was brilliant when his back was against the wall, but less brilliant when faced with an open goal. This talent has proved rather elusive to Labour leaders: Neil Kinnock spectacularly missed the open goal of the 1992 election; Gordon Brown, often too hesitant to act on his political instinct, missed a chance to build a strong Labour mandate by calling off that election.

Perhaps not so Ed Miliband, who this week promised a ‘methodical’ approach to his leadership. The phonehacking scandal of last summer was seized on by Ed, who led the charge against Murdoch. The terribly misguided Budget was also turned on the government. And now, with Britain in recession and Jeremy Hunt taking up the role as Minister for Murdoch, today’s PMQs provided Ed with a menu of attacks.

Did it help or hinder Ed? You know David Cameron has lost when he gets angry. And by the end he was very angry. It is almost as if he forgets he’s the prime minister, rather than leader of the opposition. Ed’s methodical approach certainly paid off; leading on the economy and following up with the disastrous political ineptness of the government meant two clear hits on a rather lost PM.

It is easy to be drawn into Cameron’s answers; easy to think that Ed didn’t score a clear hit. But this is a prime minister who has built himself on personality, not policy and it is his own personality which often betrays him. Some commentators think that PMQs should be about policy, because policy is what matters to the public. Some of those commentators would do well to see what makes the news tonight.

Miliband rattled Cameron, who could only answer (if that’s a suitable description) that it was all Labour’s fault and he was oblivious to both the political and the economic direction of his cabinet. He might have built his leadership on change and a cleaner politics, but when David Cameron clings to his well-trodden line that his party is different he looks rather desperate. Credibility seeps out of his government at every turn.

Ed played big on Cameron’s arrogance of, but perhaps a more convincing orchestration of the opposition benches would have helped. Once you cut through the usual jibes of being out of touch, Iain McKenzie made the best of what were ultimately well-deflected questions from Labour MPs. His reminder to the prime minister that he and George Osborne are ‘two arrogant posh boys’ (copyright Nadine Dorries) showed that Cameron faces pressure from all sides, even if his party whips had kept his MPs in line today.

Now it’s up to Ed Miliband to build on it. His dig that the coalition government is haunted by a ‘shadow of sleaze’ was rather Blair-esque and a refreshing line from the leader of the opposition. Let’s keep it that way, Ed.

—————————————————————————————

Alex White is a member of Progress, writes for the Young Progressives column, and tweets @AlexWhiteUK