PMQs verdict: Cameron wins the final PMQs of the year – but at what cost?

The temperature was hot and tempers were hotter in the chamber today. The final PMQs of a parliamentary session is always boisterous and ill-tempered, but after the Tory smear campaign of the past week, the stakes were even higher.

Predictably, Miliband led on the NHS in an attempt to spike the Tory guns – and because, of course, he would have been accused of ducking the issue if he didn’t. Statistics fizzed around the chamber around NHS spending levels and nursing levels, and after a couple of questions the Labour leader decided to move on. This was an error. Starting on the NHS before moving on made it look like he’d lost the exchange and decided to move onto easier ground. Which, of course, is exactly what Cameron accused him of.

Yet the questions on Cameron’s lobbyist strategist weren’t landing either. Cameron wriggled and evaded and obfuscated. He denied that Crosby was to blame for the plain packs u-turn and all Miliband’s bluster about Big Tobacco and “benson and Hedge funds” (groan) couldn’t save the day. But although Cameron gave his troops a morale boosting performance today, at what cost did he achieve victory? He refused to say whether or not Crosby had ever lobbied him on plain packs, squirmed when Dr Wollaston – one of his own MPs no less – stuck then knife in, before saying – somewhat over-confidently – that Crosby had never lobbied him on anything.

Never. Lobbied. Him. On. Anything.

There’s a statement that will be tested to destruction over the coming weeks and months – if the media feel inclined to ask the right questions about alcohol pricing, plain packs, Syria or BAA. Yet Cameron has ridden out rows over his staff before under the cover of a long hot silly season summer. For Coulson, read Crosby. Cameron, the great obfuscator, will be devising a plan to make sure this all goes away.

A reshuffle might have done the trick for that purpose, but he’s bottled that (despite much pre-briefing as late as last night). How odd.

And yet today could have been far better for Miliband. Whilst Crosby is a huge issue in the media and inside the Westminster Village, his name doesn’t ring out in the key marginals. Neither does Len McCluskey’s, for that matter.

By avoiding questions on the economy, Miliband missed the opportunity to tone down Cameron’s insufferable smug. Despite having presided over a historically unparalleled period of economic stagnation, he was able to proclaim that unemployment was down. Miliband should have leaped on this, proclaimed that it was excellent news, congratulated the government – and then asked what they were going to do about the 17 year high in long term unemployment. You remember the long term unemployed. The Tories claim to want to get them back to work, but label them scroungers instead. And what was 17 years ago? 1996 – the last year of a failing, miserable, weak Tory government.

Labour has a jobs guarantee – one of few major policies which the party has yet unveiled. I screamed at my TV for Miliband to whack him with it, but to no avail. The day was Cameron’s. And it was Crosby’s.

Today, Miliband could have knocked Cameron down a peg or two. Instead, the opposite happened. Tory MPs will pootle off on their holidays in a chipper mood – as will Lynton Crosby. Labour MPs less so.

And the long term unemployed? They aren’t going anywhere, in any sense of the word. Not that anyone seems to have noticed.