Organised hypocrisy

Determined to stay on the wrong side of this argument, Ed Miliband continues his slow car crash on tuition fees at PMQ's.

'An organised hypocrisy' counters Cameron in a really devastating line showing the duplicity of Labour in firstly introducing fees when they had pledged not-to in their previous manifesto - where have we heard that one before? - and in rejecting the recommendations of the Browne report they themselves commissioned in a cross-party consensus when in government.

The colour of Wednesday has changed

Labour’s woeful cockup of the public finances is now demonstrably more toxic than Cameron’s marginal involvement in Norman Lamont’s day of shame. So it’s official. The ghost of Black Wednesday has been exorcised writes Lloyd Evans reviewing PMQ's for the Speccie blog. 

He refers of course to Ed Miliband's jibe at Cameron in PMQ's that, as a young spad on Black Wednesday, the Prime Minister was responsible for the momentous events which took place. As if.

But the more interesting view comes from the comments below the blog, where 'tb' points out that had it not been for Black Wednesday, we'd be in the Euro by now. Ouch.

Clegg kept his word on paedophiles then

An intriguing and well written question at PMQ's today asked Nick Clegg which of his manifesto promises - 'apart from giving paedophiles, rapists and muderers the vote' - had the deputy Prime Minister kept?

The put-down came with the words "I'm not sure whether that was a question, or a line he's rehearsed over and over again for the past few days." Priceless.

Nick Clegg at PMQ's

"Clegg retains the impossibly high moral tone he favored (on many subjects) during his years in opposition. Adhering to a logic that mortals struggle to grasp, with great impatience he insists (as though explaining it to children) that the new policy is somehow in keeping with the old. When it isn’t. It is difficult to see this approach having widespread appeal." writes Iain Martin about today's PMQ's performance from Nick Clegg.

I think he's about right on tone, but utterly wrong on policy.

The LibDems did not win the election. Their manifesto promises cannot therefore be implemented. Indeed the British people did not vote for them to be implemented.

Coalition government is about compromise and agreement. Not lofty ideological principles that are unbreakable. No matter what pledges were signed before the election, the LibDems lost the right to stick to them the moment the electorate voted for a hung parliament.

For Labour to suggest that the LibDems now have no principles is seriously disingenuous - indeed downright dishonest. It is also why a coalition with Labour was never possible. And I thought it was all about numbers...

No progress at PMQ's

The Labour party is now so far from principle that even when faced with their own policy, they oppose it, says Cameron in a memorable line from today's PMQ's.

He went on to quote from the Labour manifesto - written by one Ed Miliband just a few short months ago - on proposed changes to housing benefit. It showed that Labour themselves wanted changes - including a cap - so that the unfairness of poorer people paying through their taxes for housing benefits on property they could only dream of was rightly stopped.

Progressive? Fair? Social Justice? Once again Ed Miliband finds himself on the wrong side of the argument.

Labour's social cleansing

Ed Miliband asks what an estimated 80,000 housing benefit recipients will do when their rent payments are capped at £20,000 pa in Prime Ministers Questions as if they will be left homeless.

Furthermore, Labour MP Chris Bryant described it as 'social cleansing' in an effort to compare it with Balkan attrocities which ended in the massacre of thousands of ethnic Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995. Polly Toynbee - in the same context - has talked of a Tory 'final solution' to welfare.

No Mr Miliband. Capping something at £20,000 means exactly that. Not leaving them with nothing. Or murdering them.

The question you need to be asking is how many of these families are unable to live on £20,000 per year in housing benefit?

PMQ's

Five questions is all the opposition get each week at Prime Ministers Questions. Today Jack Straw used all of them on the NOTW/Coulson story which ran out of beef last week: a story that involves the political class spying on itself. 

Meanwhile 10,000 jobs appear at risk from the demise of Connaught, one in five tax records appear to contain errors,  and Bob Diamond is contentiously appointed Barclays Chief Executive.

Unbelievable.