PMQs Verdict: Is anyone surprised by David Cameron’s scripted flippancy?
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RedditSometimes an entire PMQs is summed up by one excuse. Occasionally that’s because there has been a superb point made, or a slice of rapier-like wit has clearly won the day. But more often it’s because the whole session was a bit dull, with the exception of one slightly less dull thing. Today was very much of the latter.
Most of the comment in the Westminster/media bubble has been about Ed Miliband’s less than tactful response (“scraping the barrel”) when asked about Anthony Seldon’s recent hatchet job on Ed Balls. What Miliband obviously meant was that pulling out newspaper or magazine columns to attack Labour was “scraping the barrel” – but it evidently came across as an attack on the Staggers, regardless of intention. Fortunately they’ve taken it in good humour.
That Cameron would stoop to quoting an open letter/attack piece from a magazine with the history of the New Statesman should have come as no surprise to seasoned PMQs observers. After all this is someone who has previously quoted Luke Bozier and referenced Matt Zarb-Cousin’s tweets at PMQs. No quote is too small for the Prime Minister…
Yet this week the most engaging sections of the “debate” were with backbenchers. Not the back and forth between Cameron and his colleagues (those questions were deathly dull, and featured the word “Eastleigh” as if sampled on a loop), but those with the Labour backbenchers. Alas none of them thought to deviate away from their scripted questions to ask why David Cameron was sat next to the homophobic Welsh secretary, but there were poigniant questions on the Bedroom Tax and the disabled, culminating in perhaps the most inaccurate statement Cameron has ever made at PMQS (a heck of an achievement):
“This government always puts disabled people first”
If only that were true Mr Cameron, but unlike your scripted remarks bashing Ed Balls, that was presumably a slip of the tongue, because the evidence points towards the disabled being disproportionately hit. Shame on you. Perhaps next week instead of boning up on the latest columns in lefty magazines, or the latest tweets from Labour researchers, you might want to read up on the impact your government’s cuts are having on the disabled…
