PMQs verdict: Ed finds his voice

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Each and every week on LabourList we examine PMQs. We prod and poke. We examine who’s up and who’s down. Yet we also realise that there are very few PMQs that resonate with the public, and really matter.

This was one of them. And Ed Miliband met the challenge with his best performance yet.

A well phrased opening question placed Miliband on the side of the British people, and that’s where he remained throughout six well-pitched and probing questions that placed Cameron firmly on the defensive.

Miliband was statesmanlike, forensic and constructive. For the first time he tied together BskyB and the News of the World (in what may prove to be a high risk strategy), and after careful build up, forced Cameron to defend his former staffer Andy Coulson. As News International begins to dump on Coulson in a bid to save Rebekah Brooks, Cameron’s rambling, uncomfortable and squirming answer to that question could be replayed again in future.

This was a performance from Miliband that the previous months had only hinted at. Whilst the build-up to PMQs suggested an easy week for the Labour leader, this required poise, an emotional resonance with the British public and the hard edge neccessary to put the PM under pressure. Miliband showed all three.

Today Ed spoke for the readers of the News of the World who are disgusted by that papers actions. Cameron, by contrast responded by speaking for the owners of the News of the World, cloaking his prevaraction in legal niceties, rather than the leadership such an issue deserves. As a result, Cameron has put himself on the wrong side of national outrage, something which this talented Prime Minister has rarely done in the past.

Every future Prime Minister has a moment when their message chimes with public opinion, and they are seen to take decisive action. For Cameron, it was expenses, for Miliband, we don’t yet know.

This is unlikely to be that moment for Ed, but he has, at least, found his voice, and given his most impressive performance to date as Labour leader. After the week he has had, he needed that. And after the recent revelations about phone hacking, the British people needed that too.