The ghost of the United Kingdom Independence party hovered over prime minister’s questions today. No one mentioned it by name.

Its only member of parliament, Douglas Carswell, said nothing. But there are shadowy Ukip sympathisers among the grey-suited, ageing and disappointed men who make up the Tory parliamentary party. And they are spirits the Conservative leadership want to propitiate.

The spirits are getting angrier. The Liberal Democrats have stopped a bill being introduced before the general election which would pave the way for an in-out referendum, and the chief avenging Eurosceptic angel Bill Cash made sure it was the first thing David Cameron heard from his own side when he stood up to take questions.

Ed Miliband was little kinder. He launched first into the European arrest warrant, a totemic issue for the Ukip sympathisers. Why, he asked, was the prime minister delaying having a vote on it? Cameron came back to say it was a small matter of negotiation with the Spanish.

Oh no it wasn’t, said Miliband: ‘We all know the reason he’s not having a vote on in it … it’s the by-election in Rochester and Strood.’ And, said Miliband, Cameron was worried about a backbench rebellion. Cameron said they were going to have a vote on it before the Rochester and Strood by-election – so there! Miliband said he would look forward to the two parties working together – or at least one and a half parties. Haha.

Miliband then got on to immigration. Labour is clearly making a conscious effort now to talk about immigration to try and draw the sting among its own supporters, who at least on the ground are tempted too by Ukip. Ian Austin, MP for Dudley North, later too asked about immigration too, but more of that anon.

Why, asked, Miliband were 70 per cent of asylum applicants still waiting to get their cases processed? Cameron dodged and continued his lines to take on the European arrest warrant and then the pre-prepared attack on Labour, taunting the party over the resignation of the Scottish Labour leader and the ‘total shambles in Yorkshire’ – presumably referring to the danger of Ukip defeating Labour in the police and crime commissioner election in South Yorkshire tomorrow.

Miliband pursued the question of asylum seekers: a £1bn, failed IT system and 15,000 asylum seekers the authorities have lost track of. The prime minister, he said, had broken his promise on immigration by not reducing the numbers to tens of thousands. Cameron replied that Labour had encouraged immigration when it was in power. He invoked 2004, the year Britain allowed in Polish immigrants without constraints.

But Miliband had the bit between his teeth. Cameron, he said, had declared at the last election: ‘If we don’t deliver our side of the bargain vote us out in five years’ time.’ ‘Why then,’ asked Miliband ‘Doesn’t he own up? He’s broken his promise.’ He also said the Tories had been callous and incompetent, citing the latest policy change not to help prevent refugees from drowning in the Mediterranean.

Cameron blustered some more without addressing the question. But he still managed to end the debate by repeating the two Tory key attack lines against Labour: ‘We are clearing up the mess left behind by Labour. They have got no leadership.’ He also has a cruder line about Labour being a ‘complete and utter shower’, which he slipped in later.

Back to immigration. Ian Austin said he had been holding dozens (!) of public meetings in his constituency about immigration and people did not like the fact that immigrants could be unemployed in Britain, they did not want them to claim benefits, at least not immediately, and they did not want them to send child benefit back to children living abroad. God knows what else they said, but that was all we were told. Cameron, after attacking him for working for Gordon Brown, said people were also worried about pressures on public services.

It is one of the problems of discussing immigration. It becomes a zero-sum game about numbers and strain on the country, when the truth is a lot more messy and complicated. It can also be a proxy argument for other discontents.

Like low wages, perhaps, on which there were questions from Labour’s Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central), who asked Cameron to strengthen the minimum wage, and Ian Lucas (Wrexham) on falling wages in general. Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) wanted to know why the government was not rolling out the Prevent anti-terrorist programme and making it a statutory duty for public bodies. Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) raised accident and emergency waiting times which have not been met for the 66^th week in a row. Meanwhile, Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) was worried about Port Vale FC’s mascot Gavin ‘Boomer’ Yorke who has had a stroke and has been told he has to wait eight weeks for urgent speech and language therapy.

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Sally Gimson is a journalist and Labour councillor in the London borough of Camden. She tweets @SallyGimson