PMQs Verdict: If people wonder why Clegg is loathed by the Labour Party – let today be your answer

Miliband is talking about Europe. Cameron is in the Middle East. So of course that means it’s time for everyone’s least favourite PMQs – arise, the understudies. Clegg vs Harman. A clash that will ring out throughout the ages, but be forgotten entirely even by the time you read this review of proceedings.

Truth be told, neither Harman (the experienced Parliamentarian with nearly 32 years of debates under her belt) nor Clegg (the relative novice in every sense of the word with less than 9 years in Parliament) have the right temperament or style for this kind of clash. Harman tends to hurl high-handed barbs across the dispatch box that display little of the charm that she has in private, whilst Clegg gets angrier and LOUDER as proceedings continue, something he has in common with his boss and mentor David Cameron.

In fact, Clegg appeared to have adopted not only Cameron’s demeanour today, but also his script. Except Clegg, neither as quick on his feet or as well prepared as the PM, did the session without notes, meaning every question – serious of silly – was responded to with a haughtyly delivered rotating-cast of soundbites. And what attack lines they were. Labour ruined the country. Look at Wales. All of Cameron’s favourite hits were on show today. I’m sure, if he were watching from Israel, he’d have been proud. Clegg even had the temerity – the chutzpah! – to argue that Labour were the lapdogs of the banks.

This – from a man sitting next to George Osborne, who went to court to defend exorbitant bankers bonuses but looks set to slash wages for nurses – was too much to take.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ve been labouring under the impression that Nick Clegg could ever serve under a Labour government, then let today be the day when the scales fell from your eyes. This man is no Liberal – he is a thrusting young Tory, keen to succeed. He’s a wet, perhaps, but he didn’t flinch as he relentless defended the odious Bedroom Tax. I bet his activists flinched though. Or at least, those who still remain.

Harman had Clegg bang to rights on the substance of her questions today. She reeled off a list of occasions on which the Lib Dems have betrayed their manifesto and what, it was once claimed, they stood for as a party. And Clegg replied angrily, like a cover but sore child who has been caught bang to rights. He snarled, and snapped, and smudged his way around the chamber for 31 gruesome minutes.

By the end, Labour MPs looked ready to fall to the floor from sheer maddening frustration, and wondering wistfully – bizarrely – when David Cameron would be back.

If people wonder why Clegg is loathed by the Labour Party – let today be your answer.

If people wonder why Clegg serving as a Deputy PM to Ed Miliband would be as unpopular as it would be disastrous – let today be your answer.

If people wonder why Clegg’s career is heading for the skids by his 50th birthday – let today be your answer.