It was a pretty brutal trench warfare today. Both sides were shooting hard but the battle seemed rather pointless. It may be 100 years since the start of the first world war, but to stage a mini-enactment in the House of Commons today seemed over the top.

Each leader went for each other hurling as much abuse as possible. David Cameron is good at this, but Ed Miliband had the better of him today, cornering the prime minister on Europe. Cameron could only keep saying hopelessly “We have a plan.” Quite what plan, was difficult to ascertain. Cameron never said what he would do if his “renegotiation” in Europe failed, despite being asked numerous times. And that is enough ammo for the Labour Party to be going on with.

Miliband taunted him: “If it’s going so swimmingly why has Angela Merkel rejected his plans already?”

Cameron said that Merkel also had her doubts about freedom of movement. It was only briefly that he answered the question. Then he moved swiftly on to launch another volley. Alistair Darling had said a referendum was inevitable and was a boil that had to be lanced.

Miliband replied that Cameron had a divided party over Europe. He quoted John Baron, Conservative MP for Basildon and Billericay – and one of the people mooted to be leaving to join UKIP – who had said that vague promises about a better deal for Europe “wouldn’t wash”.

Cameron retaliated by saying that the shadow deputy leader of the house had said that the Labour party was “moribund”. That the shadow deputy leader of the house is Thomas Docherty, MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, and he was speaking about the Scottish Labour party didn’t seem to matter. This is Daily Mail style abuse. “It’s official [the Labour Party’s] a dead parrot,” shouted Cameron.

Miliband replied it was the Tory party which was in trouble: “Defections, rebellions, promises of a pact with Ukip.”

Cameron started getting Tory MPs to chant about the Labour party being a nothing party with nothing to say.

Miliband replied that businesses would be holding their heads in their hands on Europe because Cameron wouldn’t say yes and he wouldn’t say no: “He’s a don’t know prime minister.” By this time you really hoped it was going to end soon. Re-enactments are rarely fun for more than a few minutes.

Cameron certainly doesn’t have a plan for many things but in PMQs he always manages to get the last word and it is always abusive. “[Miliband] is a leader in crisis [with] a party nowhere to go,” was his parting shot.

You know that PMQs is a bit of a dead duck when MPs start asking questions about their pet charities. There was one about the pancreatic cancer charity and one about World Diabetes Day from Keith Vaz. Debbie Abrahams asked about the damning report today into the dire state of children and adolescent mental health services. Ben Bradshaw had terrible tales from Devon about obese patients and smokers being denied operations, the end of fertility treatment and severe rationing for cataract operations.

Thanks goodness this was a re-enactment with no real casualties, because it looks like the health service might not be able to cope.

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Sally Gimson is a journalist, a Labour councillor and reviews PMQs on Progress. She tweets @SallyGimson.

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