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PMQS verdict: Slowly but surely, Ed Miliband is getting better at PMQs

March 7, 2012 1:13 pm

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A sombre PMQs this week, and as quiet as I’ve heard the chamber for some time. Unsurprising considering the news from Afghanistan this morning, but positive to see – albeit briefly – the whole house come together to ask serious questions, worthy of serious answers.

Alas it could not last. And soon we returned to the pro-forma jousting that usually comprises PMQs. Often Ed Miliband is accused By the PM of using overly prepared lines each Wednesday. Today was another exemplar of how hypocritical that attack is. Seemingly the PM writes his answers before he hears the questions too. That’s the only explanation for his often irrelevant and always obfuscatory responses. I’m starting to suspect that we’d learn just as much if the two leaders walked to the dispatch box and ceremonially shredded their questions and answers before glowering at each other for half an hour.

Yet this criticism of Cameron’s QAD (Question Avoidance Disorder), risks ignoring how well Ed Miliband performed today. In fact my criticisms of PMQs more generally in recent weeks have risked ignoring how much he has improved. And improved he has.

Gone (almost) are the repetitions that showed he was uncomfortable with barracking from the opposition benches. Gone is the hesitation. Gone is the OTT focus on his notes. Instead he now seems calm. Almost relaxed. He doesn’t look like he’s one PMQs away from getting steamrollered by the PM. He’s asking good questions – this week on tax credit and child allowance – that matter outside of the Westminster Village. He no longer looks like he’s just complaining. And there seems, now we’re off the NHS, to be sufficient narrative outside of that hugely flawed set of “reforms” to sustain him at the dispatch box. He’s still not as good at PMQs as he is at responding to Prime Ministerial statements – which he’s excellent at, but no-one watches – but there’s a marked improvement on Wednesday lunchtimes. (And as much as I loathe these sessions, they still matter.)

The training and preparation is obviously working. Keep it up Ed. And maybe one day – if youre lucky – he’ll answer one of your questions…

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  • Plato

    PMQs will be remembered for the disgraceful question from Joan Ruddock.

    I didn’t see a single commentator do anything other than condemn it. And rightly so.

    • John Ruddy

      Oh you mean the faux outrage from right wingers?

      A perfectly reasonable question – what DOES he think of his governments plans to take benefits away from Children with Cerebral Palsy.

      Oh and why was a multi-millionaire claiming DLA?

      • treborc

        DLA is not means tested it was claimed by a Royal or so we are told.

        But of course it was labour sadly who decided to take it away from all children, Brown stated that DLA should be ended, then after his MPs said no, he said well ok children  should not get it, then when MPs said nope sorry, he stated Ok people in care  and children especially should not get, or people on pensions.

        The problem with this DLA will end soon we are hearing you must basiclly be dead to get it, nothing like helping the bankers out

        • mactheanti

          Do you always rewrite history. Please provide citations where brown said that DLA should be ended, he did nothing of the sort and he never said children shouldn’t get it either.
          If you are going to make wild claims, please back them up with facts.

    • Ian

       he never answered the bloody question though !!

      Money is been taken away from disabled kids and the same money he was happy to claim when compalining about government spending. Ruddock’s question was totally fair as he could not look her in the eye and fell back on deficit reduction. If the defecit is so damm important then why he is wanting to give the top 1% an effective tax cut .

      All in together – NO WAY

    • mactheanti

      It is tragic what happened to PMs little lad and I do not think for one minute that Joan Ruddock doesn’t think so either, however, this does not mean that MPs cannot ask him questions. Many parents with children who suffer with cerebral palsy and who are not millionaires want those questions answered.
      What this question did show and it is what many people have said already, is that David Cameron and his wife are millionaires and Cameron, Osborne and Clegg have openly attacked other well off people from claiming or receiving benefits like DLA, Child Benefit and Winter Fuel Allowance, they have protested that this is wrong, today we have a full admission by the PM in the House that he claimed DLA for his son. That to me is hypocritical. Joan Ruddock was right and once again Cameron lied.http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-is-cameron-cutting-disabled-benefits/9288 

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

       It was an excellent question – cameron loves to make platidudinous remarks, but the effect of his reforms will be exactly as Joan Ruddock describes.

      No going soft on the Tories – they will never change

  • treborc

    To be honest he could only get better, he was already at the bottom with Cameron, the pair of them had onlyn one way to go and that was up.

    But to be honest I only watched a few minutes.

  • http://twitter.com/robertsjonathan Jonathan Roberts

    Agreed Mark.  He is finding his feet rather nicely in these public jousts – if that confidence can now be translated into national policy then things will become much, much better.

    I also agree with Plato’s comment wholeheartedly.  She was out of order lecturing him about the needs of a child with cerebral palsy, and actually his response – whilst justifiable angry – gave an interesting perspective on what is going on.  He’s been there and done that, and maybe his views on the needs of such children carry more weight than those of Joan Ruddock.

    • treborc

      Well said mr New labour..

      • http://twitter.com/robertsjonathan Jonathan Roberts

        Thanks.  Although I’m unsure that what I said was in any way New Labour.

  • HarryLime

    Yes, fair play to Ed, he has improved. I was impressed by his quick thinking today when he said, ‘we have a word for that: a broken promise’, and the Tories (understandably) laughed ‘that’s two’, and he responded, ‘You’re right: two broken promises’.

    It was a mistake to give the Howells of Kent as an example of a family that is hard done by, though. The public will have little sympathy for a non-working mother whose children are all school age. Ed’s team should have found an example family where there were pre-school children preventing the mum from getting a job.

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