PMQs may have been a turning point for Miliband on the economy
At today’s PMQs, we saw a first: it was the first time that Ed Miliband attacked Cameron on the economy, and won – well almost.
Provided with the ammunition of some terrible employment figures, Miliband had an ideal quote with which to bash the prime minister:
The prime minister justified his economic policy by saying unemployment would fall this year, next year and the year after. Isn’t it time he admitted his plan isn’t working?
Miliband’s new PMQs strategy begins to pay off
Ed Miliband clearly has a new strategy for PMQs.
He began with some warm-up questions about the cost of the Afghanistan war, which he ended with a nice line about Cameron being “very crass and high-handed” when telling army chiefs, “You do the fighting, I’ll do the talking”. These were easily enough dealt with by the PM (although he did have an interesting line about wanting the strategic defence review to be implemented more quickly – more on that to follow.
But he scored a more direct hit when he began asking about DNA records of people who have been arrested for rape, but not charged. Read more
Miliband at PMQs: my NHS letter is bigger than your NHS letter
It is hard not to conclude that Ed Miliband won the major clash of the day at PMQs* over the direction of NHS reform.
David Cameron cited today’s letter to the Telegraph from 42 GPs, saying they wanted what they called “evolution not revolution”.(They are all heads of recently-formed GPs’ consortia). Read more
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Jim Pickard is the FT's chief political correspondent, having joined the lobby team in January 2008. He has been at the FT since 1999 as a regional correspondent, assistant UK news editor and property correspondent.
Kiran Stacey is an FT political correspondent, having joined the lobby in 2011. He started at the FT as a graduate trainee in 2008, working on desks including UK companies and US equity markets before taking over the FT's Energy Source blog.
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