Pmqs

The first PMQs of the new Parliament will kick off shortly and Commons watchers will be looking to see if Dennis Skinner remains in his usual spot. The socialist firebrand, along with fellow members of Labour’s so-called awkward squad, has previously occupied the second opposition front bench — until the SNP’s 56 MPs came along and attempted to oust him. But it appears that peace has broken out. The Sun’s Kevin Schofield reports that an agreement has been done to allow Skinner and Father of the House Gerald Kaufman to remain on the front bench, alongside SNP members. Other members of the awkward squad are not so lucky. As one

Ed Miliband had a disastrous PMQs today after the Labour leader claimed the Tories would raise VAT, only to have David Cameron deny that he would increase the tax. Besides leaving Miliband lost for words, Cameron’s pledge has also left a massive hole in Labour’s election campaign. It was only yesterday that Ed Balls unveiled a snazzy new poster, which contained a big ‘VAT’ swinging into a warning about the Tories’ plans. With their key line now discredited, will someone find a landfill stuffed with Labour posters in a few days time?

Rather predictably, Ed Miliband went on the TV debates again today at PMQs. Labour believe that Cameron’s refusal to do a head to head debate, despite having previously indicated he would, can be turned into an issue of character. Miliband today labelled Cameron a bully who runs away when someone stands up to him. But Cameron had his own line to push, that Miliband wanted to crawl into Downing Street on the SNP’s coattails. Every jibe from Miliband was met with this response. It was not an edifying spectacle and the glee with which the SNP watched proceedings did make one wonder where this tactic could lead. But Tory MPs,

Thank goodness there aren’t that many Prime Minister’s Questions left before the election. As James said, there was a rather end-of-term feeling to today’s session: indeed, it felt a bit like an end-of-term lunch where all the pupils are hopelessly overexcited and the teacher has given up. It wasn’t just that David Cameron decided he should troll John Bercow by reeling off a lengthy list of Tory commitments that the party has stuck to, giggling at the Speaker as he said ‘plenty of time!’ to mock Bercow’s habit of pompously telling MPs that the session will take as long as it needs to. It was also the way MPs were

That was a close one. Miliband set two traps for the PM today. One was visible. The other, far more dangerous, was hidden until the very last moment. Miliband wants Tories to vote against a bill that will forbid serving MPs from acting as company directors. This connects sweetly with his  ‘Thatcherite swine gobbling at the Westminster trough’ motif. The Labour leader asked Cameron if he minded MPs having two jobs. ‘He has a chance to vote for change tonight.’ Cameron blithely objected that the new bill excludes directors of family businesses but not ‘paid trade union officials.’ Miliband pounced. Conceding Cameron’s point, he offered to make a ‘manuscript amendment’

The Swiss list, or swizz list, dominated PMQs. Ed Miliband was keen to paint Cameron as the beneficiary of ‘dodgy’ donors who craftily side-stepped their tax bills and funnelled the proceeds back to Tory HQ. The stink also enveloped Stephen Green, given a peerage by Cameron, who ran HSBC at a time when it helped millionaires to, let us say, ‘overlook their obligations to the Treasury’. Nine years back it was even suggested, by Bloomberg, that the bank had stooped to money laundering while Green was in charge. Nonsense, said his friends, the money wasn’t being laundered, just given a rinse and a whizz over with the iron. In the

How did he get away with that? We’re assured that somewhere inside Labour HQ there toils a crack team of sleuths, analysts, Cameron-watchers, policy-fetishists and high-IQ saboteurs who spend all week devising Miliband’s Wednesday assault on the prime minister. And yet these world-class strategists seem to get beaten every time by the most predictable of dodges. Cameron doesn’t even prepare his defence. He just makes it up on the spot. Today Miliband went for the big one: hit Cameron with corruption charges. Or as near as damn it. The government has spared hedge funds from the duty payable on share dealings which is levied on all other financial players. The