PMQs verdict: Miliband seized the agenda, Cameron reached for the lies and smears

PMQs returned today – an unappetising prospect at the best of times – but it did serve to confirm something, Ed Miliband comprehensively won conference season. Today’s first head to head tussle between the party leaders provided the definitive proof, a session that was completely defined by Miliband’s plans, his agenda, his moves. Cameron, for whom conference season was as bland as suet, had little of his own to say.

First Tory conference was defined by Ed Miliband. Now Ed Miliband is defining the new parliamentary term too. Cost of living is the prism through which everything is being viewed, and Labour’s offer on energy prizes has Cameron reaching around for an adequate response.

So when he lacked one – he reached for the bluntest of political weapons. The untruth.

Now I don’t suggest that someone has lied lightly – it’s a strong charge to make – but Cameron lied and smeared at least three times today, and that shouldn’t pass without comment:

Cameron said that Miliband wants to live in a “Marxist universe”: So much for Cameron sympathising with Miliband over the way his father’s views were covered by the Mail. Now Cameron is joining in with Osborne’s unsubtle “Marxist” attacks at Tory conference. The father was a Marxist, so the son must be too – is that the rationale? The idea that Ed Miliband’s energy prize freeze is “Marxism” is a lie – it’s no more of an interference in the market that the house price inflating schemes of the Chancellor, as Graham Jones MP expertly noted today. Ed Miliband isn’t a Marxist, it’s a cheap, lying smear.

Cameron claimed that “all married couples paying basic rate tax will benefit from this move” – this is just plain untrue. It’s a lie. The government says, the policy will benefit couples where one is a basic rate taxpayer and one has unused personal allowance – a two earner married couple each earning £10,000 (£20,000 in total) won’t benefit. A single earner married couple earning double that will gain. So all married couples won’t benefit at all. That’s a lie.

Cameron played up the nonsense that the BBC is a left-wing conspiracy: I could tell that Cameron was up to something today when he said that “even the BBC’ agreed with something or other. “Even the BBC”. What an odd phrase to describe Britain’s public broadcaster. But then he did it again, and again. Cameron has either bought into – or is pretending to buy into – the ludicrous right-wing fantasy that the BBC is a leftie conspiracy. That’s the BBC that is run by Tory peer Lord Patten. That’s the BBC whose political editor was the Chair of the Young Conservatives. That’s the BBC who have the publisher of the Spectator as the host of their flagship Daily Politics programme. That’s the BBC who academics have actually proved give more air time to the Tories than Labour. But Cameron decided to join in the conspiracy-theory smears of some on the Tory Right in order to ingratiate himself with his backbenchers. The BBC isn’t biased towards the left, to imply as such is a lie.

Whilst Ed Miliband is setting the agenda, David Cameron is setting the standard for dishonesty in the chamber. He should correct his untruths and apologise for his smears. But of course he won’t. He’ll be back to do the same again next week.