@DAaronovitch directly challenged me as to what I felt was good at Ed’s first ever PMQs. Aaronovitch made the faultless remark that it was the same format; it was business as usual, and just an exchange of quotations and facts, and there had been indeed plus ça change (plus c’est la même chose). I can only only bow to David’s authoritative commentary on this, which, on further reflection, has always been very perceptive to me.

I was struck by the measured unpredictability of Ed Miliband. Firstly, he wrong-footed most of the punters with his choice of shadow cabinet, then he went with child benefit, when most political spectators thought he’d run with the graduate tax, which was left up to the lack-lustre Esther McVey to ask about later in the proceedings. However, the overwhelming verdict from my Labour tweeps that Ed floored David in this first exchange. Ed started with a very straight-forward question.

“How many families where 1 parent stays at home will be affected?
“15% of families are higher-rate tax-payers“. This was a total answer, and then David asked a question.

Ed reasonably replies: “I may be new to this game, but I’m afraid I ask the questions and he answers them” Ed then asks why the formulation of the system is not fair, and again David did not give an answer to it.

“I’m afraid it’s 0 out of 2 on straight answers. We must change the tone of these exchanges, but we must provide straight questions to straight answers“.

The Speaker then asked for calm in the house, but it seems that many people watching the spectacle do in fact enjoy the exchanges; they seem particularly like the new passive aggressive stance by Ed Miliband, while David Cameron was shouting and ranting his head off.

David then came up with his beleaguered, “It’s Labour’s Fault”. Only Nick Clegg seemed to find that convincing. Then he moved onto an antiquated quotation from Alan Milburn, and said, “I love this”, like a third-rate imitation of Margaret Thatcher. The problem is that not many on the Coalition’s side ‘loved it'; they just saw a leader of thee Tory party sinking without trace. Ed Miliband then returned to the point that he simply did not believe his budget reduction plan was at all fair, and again David Cameron gave a really poor performance.

It’s no surprise that all the commentators thought that David Cameron was easily beaten in this first performance, including @TimMontgomerie.

Dr Shibley Rahman
Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors