Live blog

PMQs Live blog | 2 March 2011

VERDICT: What began as a measured affair, with polite questions from Miliband about Libya and the Defence establishment, effervesced into something more dramatic. I was surprised Miliband didn’t concentrate on the rising cost of living; rather, he chipped at the local government funding settlement. By concentrating on examples of Tory-led council intransigence, Miliband did not appear to be being overtly partisan. By contrast, Cameron was initially far too eager to political points: twice he raised Nottingham Council’s refusal to publish details of its pay structure when the issue was irrelevant. Eventually though, he struck the right tone by attacking council waste and politicking per se. Sure, things are not easy

PMQs live blog | 16 February 2011

VERDICT: It was, comparatively, a quieter session than last week. Miliband was not as effective and missed the bus on the forestry u-turn. His attack on the government’s growth agenda was more spirited (Miliband is better with statistics than jokes). Even so, he concentrated on youth unemployment, which has been a long-term problem in Britain. Therefore, it doesn’t work as a critique of government policy. This is a very difficult time for the government and for Cameron personally; he will be relieved then to have emerged from PMQs largely unscathed. More worrying for Cameron, there was a hangover from last week’s 5 hostile Tory backbench questions, particularly on the issue

PMQs live blog | 2 February 2011

VERDICT: What a refreshing change that was. After several weeks of Punch ‘n’ Judy rivalry, the two party leaders finally put down their batons and stumbled upon a new way to do it. Much of the credit must go to Ed Miliband, for asking pacific questions about Egypt and Afghanistan in the first place. But credit, also, to Cameron, for answering them in a straightforward and statesmanlike manner. The rest of the House, for its part, was stunned into silence by this peculiar scene. Some of the blood rushed back into proceedings with the backbench questions, and as Cameron directed attacks at Ed Balls, but this must still go down

PMQs live blog | 26 January 2011

VERDICT: Ed Miliband had it all, going into today’s PMQs: weak growth figures, the uncertain demise of control orders, rising youth unemployment, and more. And yet, somehow, he let most of it go to waste. Barely any of his attacks stuck – or, for that matter, stick in the mind – and Cameron rebuffed them with surprising ease. It helped that the Prime Minister seemed more comprehensively briefed than usual, with a decent compliment of statistics, and one or two sharp lines, at his disposal. (Although, measuring by the Labour cheers, I doubt he will thank Jacob Rees-Mogg for invoking Thatcher immediately after his exchange with the Labour leader.) In

PMQs live blog | 19 January 2011

VERDICT: No winners, and no real losers, from this week’s PMQs. Miliband’s questions were insistent and straightforward. Cameron’s answers were forceful and, in themselves, fairly persuasive. A no-score draw, then, if you want to look at it like that. There were one or two worrying leitmotifs for the coalition, though. First, the PM’s tendency towards grouchiness under fire; far less pronounced than it was last week, but still present. And then the continuing absence of any clear explanation of the NHS reforms, beyond “well, we had to change what was there previously.” The PM has a point about cancer survival rates and the like, but he’s not yet setting out

PMQs live blog | 12 January 2011

VERDICT: Woah. If you ever needed a PMQs to brush away the last morsels of festive cheer, then this was it. Every question and answer came laced with some sideswipe or other, and it made for a scrappy exchange between the two party leaders. Both struck blows against each other, but both were also guilty of errors and mis-steps. Miliband squandered an easy attack on bankers’ bonuses, even allowing Cameron to turn it back against Labour. While, for his part, the Prime Minister was so relentlessly personal that it came across as unstatesmanlike. I don’t think either one really emerged victorious, or well, to be honest. It was simply unedifiying

Live-blogging the protests

1540: Heading back to Spectator HQ but it’s blocked off. They appear to be kettles in parliament square. The horses appear to be keeping the crowd back. Fence is being thrown around again. 1530: Milbank is full of police vans, they have to put them somewhere. Police are turning away people from Parliament Square. Police are using riot-proof cameras for evidence. 1455: The Met are shouting and trying to get everyone back on the planned route, but the crowd are beyond caring. A bystander pointed out Parliament Square is being used (more likely destroyed) for the first time in months. 1445: A view from a parliamentary researcher: “Life goes on

PMQs live blog | 8 December 2010

VERDICT: Tuition fees, tuition fees, tuition fees. Ed Miliband used only one weapon from his armoury today – but it served him unexpectedly well. The Labour leader scraped a contest that, as usual, offered far more heat than light. His attacks were slightly more cutting, his one-liners that little bit more memorable, and it was all the more remarkable given his dreadful performance seven days ago. It wasn’t that Cameron performed badly. The PM rightly – and, at times, effectively – pointed out Labour’s hypocrisy on this issue. But it all seemed a little flat, as though he was reading from a script that had only just been handed to

PMQs live blog | 1 December 2010

VERDICT: A freewheeling, swashbuckling sort of performance from Cameron today, that was encapsulated by a single line: “I’d rather be a Child of Thatcher than a Son of Brown”. Sure, that may not go down too well with lefty Lib Dems nor, indeed, many Scottish voters. But, in the context of PMQs, it was a rapier response to Ed Miliband’s sclerotic lines of questioning. Why the Labour leader chose to completely ignore today’s Mervyn King quotes, and sift unpersuasively through the footnotes of the OBR report, I’m not sure. In any case, the plan didn’t work at all. This was yet another PMQs which generated more heat than light, but

PMQs live blog | 17 November 2010

VERDICT: Harriet Harman’s questions must have looked quite clever on paper: a heavy emphasis on police cuts, followed by a quick dose of indigation over the vanity photographers. But, in reality, they were breezily repelled by Cameron. All he had to do was cite the words of Alan Johnson and refer to a list of Labour’s own dodgy hires. By the time Harman attacked the cost of elected police commissioners, leaving Cameron to stand up for greater local democracy and accountability, it was clear who had won this bout: the Prime Minister, by some distance. Although, as Andrew Neil and Tim Montgomerie have noted, the absence of any talk about

PMQs live blog | 10 November 2010

VERDICT: Earlier today, I wrote that the coalition “has few better defenders of its cause than Nick Clegg”. You wouldn’t have guessed it from this PMQs performance. Harman had him on the back foot over tuition fees from the off, and he struggled to give concise, clear answers in return. A pity, because Clegg is right when he says that the coalition has a better policy than Labour’s messy graduate tax – yet there was too much waffle, and too little directness, from him today. The deputy Prime Minister was better when he blazed with anger over Labour’s hypocrisy. But, on the whole, this was a bout to cheer the

PMQs live blog | 3 November 2010

VERDICT: Perhaps the snappiest exchange between Cameron and Miliband so far, with both men on combative form. Miliband’s charge was that, from tuition fees to child benefit, the coalition is breaking promises that it made before the election. And Cameron’s counter was that he has had to take tough action to deal with the mess that Labour left behind, and that Ed Miliband has nothing to offer to that process other than kneejerk opposition. As exchanges across the dispatch box go, that’s pretty standard stuff – but at least it was packaged with some wit (although little real insight) today. A score draw. 1232: And that’s it. My short verdict

PMQs live blog | 27 October 2010

VERDICT: The housing benefit cuts inspired Ed Miliband’s chosen attack – and he deployed it quite effectively, with none of the unclarity that we saw last week. For the most part, though, Cameron stood firm – leaning on his favourite rhetorical stick, What Would Labour Do? – and his final flurry against Ed Miliband was enough, I think, to win him this encounter on points. But don’t expect this housing benefit issue to dissipate quickly. Bob Russell’s question was evidence enough of how tricky this could be for the coalition. 1232: And that’s it. My quick verdict shortly. 1231: Bob Russell, a Lib Dem, says that housing benefit cuts are

Spending review live blog 

1350, PH: And that’s Johnson finished now. Osborne is responding, but we’ll leave the live blog there. Plenty more coverage on Coffee House soon. 1348, PH: Johnson claims that Osborne’s final point about 19 percent departmental cuts is misleading. He goes on to say that Labour would now cut departmental budgets by half the amount. 1346, PH: Labour’s method for deflecting the increase in the NHS budget is taking shape: Johnson claims that it will be swallowed by a “wasteful” reorganisation of the service. 1342, PH: Now Johnson is focussing on the figure of 490,000 public sector job losses. He says that welfare cuts will make it harder for them

PMQs live blog | 20 October 2010

QUICK VERDICT: More heat than light today, but Cameron easily got the better of Ed Miliband. Now to the Spending Review live blog. 1230: Cameron says that as cuts are made, the government will have to reform the way it does criminal justice. This is a prelude for the deep cuts that the Home Office and Justice department are expected to face in the spending review. 1228: The Lib Dem MP asks whether Cameron believes that better-off graduates should bear more for their university costs. Cameron says that he agrees on principle, and claims that “everyone in the House” wants the “same thing”: a fair and well-funded university system. 1226:

PMQs live blog | 13 October 2010

VERDICT: Well, who would have thought it? In his first PMQs performance, Ed Miliband not only put in a solid showing – but he got the better of David Cameron. I certainly don’t agree with the Labour leader’s central argument: that it is unfair to restrict child benefit. But he put his point across in measured, reasonable tones – and Cameron seemed flustered by comparison, as he wagged on about the size of the deficit. Make no mistake, the argument and the public’s sympathies will unwind themselves over the course of the entire Parliament. They will not be resolved in one session of PMQs. But in presentational terms, MiliE will

David Cameron speech live blog

1537, PH: And Cameron ends on that note, calling on the public to get involved in fixing society: “So come on: let’s pull together. Let’s come together. Let’s work, together, in the national interest.” Standing ovation. More reaction on Coffee House shortly. 1537, PH: This is good, liberal-conservative stuff from Cameron. He says that the government recognises that it is there to push power to the people. “I know the British people: they are not passengers, they are drivers.” 1535, PH: Strong line: “Mine is not just a vision of a more powerful country, it is of more powerful people.” 1536, PH: The Big Society returns, with a lenghty section

Ed Miliband’s speech: live blog

1522, PH: We’ll leave it there. More reaction on Coffee House shortly. 1520, PH: And there’s the closing summary. He manages to squeeze “new generation” and “optimists” in several times. Then, a standing ovation, natch. 1519, PH: Weird blip as Miliband says that he wants to take on “David … Cameron”. Did he have another rival called “David” in mind? 1518, PH: A bit of life to the speech now, as Miliband takes on the Red Ed label. “Come of it,” he swipes, “let’s debate the issues that matter to Britain.” 1518, FN: A huge sigh of relief in Tory HQ, I suspect, as he says he supports Ken Clarke’s

Ed Miliband elected Labour leader: live blog

1704, PH: We’ll leave it there, although we’ll have more reaction on Coffee House shortly. 1702, PH: I’ve already forgotten Miliband’s final line, although it involved the phrase “new generation”. Not a great speech, but some turnaround for him over the course of the contest. 1700, PH: Ooh, what does that mean for Ed Balls? Miliband says that, “I do believe we’ve got to reduce the deficit, but we’ve got to do more to help the country”. 1700, JF: It is what Labour MPs were calling the Doomsday scenario, Ed loses MPs and Members but wins thanks to massive support in the union section. Tonight there will be those who

Clegg speech live blog

1653, PH: And that, aside from Clegg’s stroll around the crowd, is that. There’ll be further analysis on Coffee House shortly. The applause continues… 1652, PH: Clegg ends with a flourish: “Stick with us, and we will change Britain for good.” The crowd is on its feet. 1651, PH: Is Clegg moulding his party as the party of coalition? He says that the next few years may make the case of “liberal, pluralist politics”. 1650, PH: Clegg says that if AV triumphs in the referendum next year, then “the clapped-out system of first-past-the-post will be gone for good.” 1648, PH: A return to the theme of the beginning of the