PMQs Verdict: No news is good news

If we agree that no news is good news, then PMQs today was good news. Unusually sedate, relatively even tempered and even – at one point – a bit of consensus broke out. New year, new PMQs, but one swallowed insult doesn’t make a political summer. Yet it certainly felt like Team Ed had made a conscious decision not to have Ed throwing himself headlong at the PM today. No Drama.

That’s not to say the issues raised weren’t important. Those of us who live in the suburbs know how important the cost of rail fares are, with commuters getting hit harder year on year. There are infinite reasons why you might want to live on the outskirts of a city and commute, but chief among them is that you get “more bang for your buck”. Train fare hikes hit swing voters in these often marginal constituencies hard. And they have a lot of time to read about political issues on those long, crowded train journeys. It’s an issue that can cut through, and one that decides elections in swing marginals.It’ll be disparaged by the lobby of course, because as a debating point it’s dull. But then again the lobby are unlikely to be commuters, and are rarely “squeezed”.

Team Ed say that their figures are “copper bottomed” and there’s a weighty briefing circulating that seems to nail Cameron on the issue. His mini u-turn mid PMQs probably won’t be enough to save him, but as is often the case now, our political debates aren’t really won until they’ve been Factchecked.

Today’s debate well and truly ended as a sparring spectacle when the two leaders discussed an issue that they agree on – Scottish independence. This wasn’t PMQs anymore – this was “Make a longer and more thorough statement on Scotland than the other guy” time. As Anthony Painter rightly notes, it was a missed opportunity to talk about England, but there will (and must be) time for that in the coming months. This was statesmanlike (which runs the risk of becoming a cliche in itself, but what isn’t nowadays?).

So how did today’s performance compare to recent PMQs? Well it was a (low score) draw, which – with careful media management – Ed could convert to a win if rail fares are still on the news radar tomorrow. And despite my recent call for Ed to show a bit more passion, a more downbeat approach to PMQs appears to pay dividends. It’s not a tactic that will turn things around for Ed, but it might provide a bit of stability.

And that’s something that he desperately needs right now, if he’s to have something solid enough to build on in 2012.