PMQs Review - 19th January 2011

Bit of an odd session today, with a six-question break in the middle of Ed Miliband's questions to the PM. Even odder, however, was the huge cheer that Miliband got when he stood up to speak: for a split-second I think he thought something else was going on in the Chamber. Still, it's definitely good news for the Labour leader that his party is starting to support him.

The first question, as it tends to be with Miliband, was very simple. He asked if it was a good thing that unemployment was rising. Cameron responded very well and actually gave an honest answer, stating that he was worried about the figures but that there was some progress being made. He then, cleverly, raised the issue of youth unemployment and pre-empted the Leader of the Opposition by saying that it had increased by 40% under Labour.

And so it all started to go wrong for Ed. He clumsily read out his clearly scripted line which bore no relation to what Cameron had just said, and accused him of being complacent - Cameron's answer had been anything but. He then delivered a hopeless line about how the PM was 'rumbled' in Oldham. It made no sense. Predictably, Cameron laid into him for his inability to debate properly and his reliance on his notes, before easily swatting away his attack on the coalition's decision to scrap the Future Jobs Fund with some excellent statistics.

We then endured a 6-question interlude before Miliband got back up to ask the PM if he could guarantee that hospital waiting times would not increase. This was a well-designed question, because the PM can't guarantee it. He can't because he's abolished top-down targets, and that means that there is no longer scope for a centrally imposed guarantee. But Cameron failed to make this point, and to argue that his reforms would reduce waiting times, which was his biggest slip-up of the day. Instead he just started to attack Labour for not promising an increase in NHS spending.

Miliband then pushed him on the same point again, and made a very good point about NHS waiting times going down under Labour. Cameron made the same response as before, criticising the Labour Party for not promising to increase NHS spending and trying - pretty unsuccessfully - to paint the Conservatives as the party of the NHS.

Miliband said Cameron was taking the 'National out of the NHS', which is a nice line but didn't really reinforce the point Miliband made in the previous question. Miliband then got a little personal, and called the PM 'arrogant'. By now Cameron had got back into his swing, and he came up with a line - I've no idea why he didn't use it earlier - that the waiting list times were in the NHS constitution. He also said the reforms would save £5bn and improve the NHS.

The session started with Cameron on top and ended the same way too. Miliband made some comments about broken promises which didn't fit his earlier questions and were horrendously delivered, prompting Cameron to make yet another joke about his sub-standard debating skills.

What's most worrying for Miliband is that if he can't kick Cameron around on Lansley's NHS reforms and bankers' bonuses then what can he beat him on? These were golden opportunities for Miliband to make life very hard for Cameron and yet, aside from a couple of good questions, he has not managed to do it. So poor is his delivery and his inability to divert from his script that he's managed to make it an issue that Cameron highlights as much as Miliband picks up on dodged questions. Cameron was on better form than last week and, aside from one missed opportunity, was on top for the whole debate. So while Miliband's attacks on the NHS might play well in public, they were not good enough to save him from defeat today.

Cameron win.