Monday 1 April 2013
Waging War on the Welfare State
Wednesday 6 February 2013
Prime Minister's Questions - 6th February
The day after a vote that Diane Abbott argued proved that “the arch of history bends slowly, but it bends towards justice”, Prime Minister’s Questions unsurprisingly did not show any criticism for the policy of same-sex marriage, a fantastic decision to moving towards equality in society shown by many members of all parties across the house. The debate swiftly moved into one on the ‘bedroom tax’. Cameron refuted claims that it was a tax, instead dubbing it a benefit. Miliband shook this defence off effectively, questioning the case that paying £25 more a week due to Government policies is not considered a tax. Rightly, it was raised across the Labour benches that this policy would hit those with disabled members of their family hardest. Cameron, again, seemed unable to defend himself, reversing questions towards Miliband. After criticisms almost amounting to corruption of the PM, Cameron accused Miliband of wanting to be the “fairy godmother” to trade unionists. One Labour MP cynically asked whether the recently discovered remains of Richard III had been declared fit to work by ATOS, receiving laughs and cheers from around the house, even from Cameron. Yet, in the midst of the IFS’ announcement that they expected the Government to borrow £64 billion more than expected, what really resounded was Miliband’s description of the PM as “weak, incompetent and totally out of touch”
Wednesday 19 December 2012
Prime Minister’s Questions – 19th December
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.