PMQs Verdict: What a difference a radical policy makes

The last few PMQs sessions have been sober and reflective, statesmanlike and becalmed. Crimea was the order of the day last week, but most of us expected that was because Miliband didn’t want to waste any attack lines ahead of the budget. Yet when Miliband’s budget riposte came it was lacklustre, and didn’t take on the budget itself.

Since then, Miliband has not had a good week.

The polls have got tighter, debate over the party’s current lack of oomph has rumbled on for days and this afternoon he’ll face a sizeable and vocal rebellion over his support for a cap on welfare spending. Miliband must’ve felt like he couldn’t catch a break.

Until energy giant SSE announced this morning that they’d be freezing energy prices until 2016. Miliband must have felt the temptation to throw off decades of reserve and cartwheel across his spacious Westminster office. Six months after his energy price freeze pledge at conference, here was a vindication that such a policy was possible. Here was – perhaps – a sign from an energy giant that they thought Miliband would be PM in a year and might as well implement the policy anyway and take credit.

Here was an opportunity to go into the Commons and ask David Cameron if he agreed with Miliband and SSE that an energy price freeze was both possible and a good idea for consumers. And grasp that opportunity Miliband did.

Miliband bounded from his seat in the chamber and delivered the lines. A playful look danced across the Labour leader’s eyes as he waited for Cameron’s response. And when it came, it was glorious. You see – and I’m not kidding here – David Cameron thinks that SSE have frozen prices because of him and his government. That’s the man who described an energy price freeze as a “con”. That’s the man who derided the plan in the Commons, the press and in private for weeks. He thinks that the energy price freeze has happened because of him. Delusion, it must be said, has much to recommend it.

Cameron’s claim was that because the government had removed green taxes (or “cutting the green crap” as it’s known in Downing Street) was the reason for the price freeze. That’s an argument that holds little water a) because the government effectively handed a freebie to the big six, rather than forcing them to live within their means and b) because Cameron wouldn’t have taken any notice of energy bill prices if Miliband hadn’t hammered him on the issue first.

Some have attempted to claim that Cameron crawled free from the wreckage with a draw at PMQs today. Perhaps, if bluster counts more than substance (which it often does, lets be fair) – but tonight on the evening news bulletins, and across the country when people receive their letters saying that their energy company will be freezing bills until 2016, who will they thank? The man who called for a freeze or the man who said it was a “con”?

And so after a tricky week (with more trickiness to come this afternoon), Miliband has gained some respite. One big policy, launched with aplomb last year, has bought him some more time. Big ideas, big offers to the public, big aims for Britain. They have a habit of shaping a debate. They work for Miliband. He might want to roll out a few more of them, then he can have more days like today – where he’ll get credit for making a big call early.