PMQs Verdict: Think of those who will have a distinctly un-Merry Christmas, thanks to Cameron

There’s a risk at Christmas time of going through the motions at work in the run up to Christmas. It’s dark and cold outside, and all you really want to be doing is sorting out the Christmas tree, finishing your shopping and eating mince pies. (Obviously that’s not the case at LabourList – and certainly not the reason why this PMQs verdict is arriving three hours after Cameron and Miliband sat down. Ahem…).

There was an element of pre-Christmas about today’s PMQs – more Christmas turkey than Christmas cracker.

Miliband chose to attack on the economy, because the Labour leader appears convinced (not unreasonably) that the Tories have made a decision that’s at least as damaging for them as the ill-fated choice to cut the top rate of tax in 2012. Miliband clearly thinks that their plan – outlined in the Autumn Statement –  to slash and burn the state beyond what is needed to eliminate the deficit is a weak point for the Tories. The line about returning the state to the 1930s may need some work (lets be honest, most of the electorate wasn’t alive then and doesn’t have a clear idea of how grim that decade was) but the central argument he’s making is the right one – that the Tory mask has slipped. Slashing the state is – surprise, surprise – exactly what Tories came into politics to do.

Cameron’s response was the usual mix of bravado and noise. He argued that government spending had been as low when Labour was in government and Miliband was in the Treasury. It’d be a compelling argument if the OBR – set up by Osborne of course – weren’t saying that spending as a percentage of GDP would reach an 80 year low under Tory plans.

Cameron and Osborne see conspiracies everywhere – that’s why they’re trying to blame the BBC for the 1930s level spending line – but the truth is the line came from a body they created.

Talking of messes of the Tories own creation, much of the rest of PMQs was spent discussing today’s vote – brought by Labour – to scrap the pernicious Bedroom Tax. Refusing to address the measure by name, Cameron kept on repeating that Labour was planning £2 billion more in welfare spending.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the fact that the Bedroom Tax repeal proposal from Labour is fully funded? Or the fact that the Bedroom Tax may not actually save all that much at all, if anything? And while we’re on, lets get real – if there’s a cost in axing the Bedroom Tax it is a price worth paying to end an evil blight on society, penalising the poor for a lack of affordable homes.

Cameron claimed that ending the Bedroom Tax would mean cuts elsewhere. Does the PM not realise that taxing his wealthy friends and donors a bit more is also an option for dealing with the deficit? Of course he doesn’t. And as he tucks into his Christmas lunch in Downing Street or elsewhere this year, families across the country who are hundreds of pounds worse off – missing money they can’t afford through no fault of their own – will have a distinctly un-Merry Christmas.