After last week’s prime minister’s questions – widely hailed as a victory for Ed Miliband after he ambushed David Cameron with the revelation of his welfare minister’s despicable comments about disabled people – the pressure was on for the Labour leader to land another unsuspected blow and keep up the pressure on Cameron to defend what has been characterised as a return of the ‘nasty party’.
Instead, Miliband, perhaps all too predictably, chose to revert to the key narrative Labour had hoped would emanate from the party’s conference last month: that ‘you can’t trust the Tories on the NHS’.
Unfortunately for Miliband, the first question turned the tables, as Tory backbencher Andrew Griffiths raised recent criticisms, currently being extolled in a campaign by the Daily Mail, over the state of the health service in Labour-run Wales.
There was a whiff of foul play here – and seemingly a breach of convention – as the planted question enabled the prime minister to respond to an area that he has no jurisdiction over. At best it was a transparent attempt to deflect from criticism of the NHS in England. Before Miliband had even had a chance to speak, Cameron was firing questions at him over Labour’s own record. Farcically, it had become leader of the opposition’s questions.
Miliband coolly reminded Cameron that it was supposed to be him answering the questions and ploughed ahead, slamming the prime minister for ‘running scared on the NHS in England’. He criticised increased waiting times in A&E, missed cancer targets and the current difficulty of getting an appointment with a GP – but by this point the ‘tit-for-tat’ nature of the debate sadly meant there was little cut-through.
The number of pre-prepared questions doled out by the Tory whips to those loyal to the prime minister was laid bare this week. Cameron boasted of the drop in the number of benefit claimants as he shamelessly reeled off specific figures for the constituencies belonging to each of the many members who asked identikit questions on youth unemployment.
Those loyal to the prime minister were of course right to attempt to flood the questions coming from the Tory benches; Cameron was running scared, not from the opposition, but from his own side, as the issue of Europe continues to tear through his party.
Their efforts were proved to be in vain when right-winger Peter Bone provided a particularly awkward moment for the prime minister by asking about immigration within the European Union. It was an unhelpful question for Cameron, as the Conservatives attempt to pander further and further towards Ukip ahead of next month’s Rochester and Strood by-election, despite their hands clearly being tied on this specific issue.
Given the tight spot Cameron has already been placed on by his own party, the biggest surprise this week was that Labour did not choose to make more of the emerging scandal regarding the deportation of foreign criminals. This was an opportunity to confront the government on a very genuine failure – one of great concern to the electorate – without succumbing to Ukip’s populist isolationist narrative. Steve Reed was afforded the opportunity to raise the issue, but there was insufficient time left to press the prime minister on it properly.
———————————
Ben Dilks is editorial assistant at Progress
———————————