Prime Minister’s Questions – 19th December

Image by Victoria Kettlewell

It seemed like some festive cheer was in the air this week as it took a good few minutes before the battle of statistics began – it even looked like Cameron and Miliband were just going to stand there agreeing with each other for a while as they talked about various military topics. We finally got a glimpse of what Cameron’s “Big Society” is when he shouted about the fantastic hard work thousands of volunteers are offering to food banks around the country; Miliband has now captioned the scheme as for “feeding hungry children in Britain”. Cameron seemed unable to defend himself against Miliband’s attacks on the Tory’s cuts calling them “out of touch” with families and saying that the richest were getting a tax reduction. According to Cameron, Miliband has nothing else to offer this Christmas. Other Labour MPs gifted the Tories with their own panto with some new Christmas movies – the Grinch Who Stole Christmas starring the Chancellor, the Muppets Christmas Carol starring the Lib Dems and It’s Not A Wonderful Life for the Poor starring Cameron. There was a shout of “can we have a vote?” from a Tory MP as one Labour MP gave his season’s greetings to the Speaker. One final attack from Labour saw a suicide note that blamed the Government’s reforms of the Disability Living Allowance. However, the impending end of the world never managed to make it onto their agenda. Let’s hope they’ve got a secret plan for the survivors up their sleeves.

Also published on Redbrick

Prime Minister’s Questions – 12th December

Image by Victoria Kettlewell

The house just couldn’t keep quiet this week and with that came a feeling of having returned to a classroom of schoolboys. Even our infamous Speaker couldn’t get the house to shut up, so there was a constant jeering, perhaps more annoying than the vuvuzelas of the 2010 Football World Cup. Cameron and Miliband referred to each other as bullies and there certainly was some use of catchphrases. Red-faced Cameron was asked if he had “wrecked a restaurant recently” whilst confidence-lacking Miliband had his shadow chancellor attacked as a bully who couldn’t take it in return. It was an elongated and highly repetitive argument of welfare cuts and deficit reduction over welfare increase and increased borrowing. Where Cameron tried to take a Robin Hood angle, Miliband shot him down, stating that the Tory donors stamped their feet and got what they wanted. Cameron shortly replied that if it weren’t for the Labour donors, Miliband wouldn’t be in his position. Neither side won – there was just simply bulldozing of either side’s policies. Other MPs ravaged the PM with questions on the “snooper’s charter” saying the Government would do more spying than their media friends in Wapping, whilst others showed off their historical expertise in asking whether the Government were going to repeal the Magna Carta of 1297. Scottish MPs showed off and asked whether the Government would be copying them in their successes, whereas Northern Irish MPs asked the PM to condemn the violence in Belfast. Wales was quiet this week.