Analysing PMQs - How to win

The simplest way of looking at the new, developing relationship between David Cameron and Ed Miliband is to watch PMQs. Every Wednesday, the two leaders face off against each other in what is the most entertaining weekly part of our political cycle. But how exactly do you 'win' PMQs? What exactly is PMQs for? And what does the public really gain from these brief encounters? I'll be looking at these three questions separately, and in this blog post focussing on how politicians 'win' PMQs.

There are two important aspects to PMQs. The first is style. The second is substance. The most important thing to remember is that you don't have to win on both. Winning, or losing, one of them by a large enough margin will negate the other. So when Gordon Brown slipped up and said he 'saved the world', instead of 'the economy', he lost PMQs on style. It didn't matter what points of substance he raised in response to Cameron's questions. The Commons was in uproar, the debate was lost, and tomorrow's headlines had been written.

Ed Miliband's first performance was also judged on style. He managed to make Cameron seem patronising. Miliband's quip that 'despite being new to this, I'm pretty sure that I ask the questions' flooded the Labour benches with relief - that he (and, in electing him, they) wasn't going to screw up - and a belief that he could compete with and beat Cameron in the future. Yet it was also coupled with a line of questioning which had some substance - on the 'unfair' way Child Benefit is to be withdrawn from higher rate taxpayers.

David Cameron similarly joined style and substance last week when he defended the cap on Housing Benefits. It was an area which could have troubled him, but he was unequivocal in his support for the cap, saying clearly and directly that when the government is prepared to offer £20,000 a year towards rent no family should go without a home, and that to offer more would be unfair on working families that can't afford to live in those areas. He combined this policy defence with a joke about a leaked Labour document advising Ed Miliband on how to plan for PMQs: 'He's got a plan for PMQs but not for the economy.'

Winning purely on substance is rarer. In fact it is really impossible because delivery in such a charged environment will always be important and so a certain amount of style becomes a necessity. What is possible is to win on substance without landing a killer joke or getting your troops excited. But this actually comes across as a failure, because if you're winning on substance and fail on style you're missing an open goal. Without his jokes at Ed Miliband's expense, David Cameron's efforts defending the Housing Benefit cap would have ended in a draw with the Labour leader, not a victory. That this joke was a gift from Labour rather than of the Tories' own making shows how the substance of the Housing Benefit debate is yet to be won convincingly.

So to win PMQs it really is important to have both a good style and some substance to what you are saying. It is more common to win on style, because the highly pressured 20 minutes where the two leaders face one another is not really a conducive arena for serious policy debate. In the end, both sides usually attack each other's policy positions (which are mostly entrenched and will not change on the basis of one PMQs) with style not substance, hoping to land jokes and jibes that rally their supporters.

Over time, you would look to make your tactical victories part of a larger narrative. This is what Ed Miliband was trying to do by asking simple questions and provoking Cameron's faux indignation and condescending answers. He want's to present the PM as arrogant to the public. That's what he's doing to win on style. To win on substance over time he's seeking to hammer home his key message about the unfairness of the Coalition's spending plans. That's why he focussed on Child Benefit and Housing Benefit.

Cameron, on the other hand, is seeking to win on substance by making the most of Labour's ambiguous (at best) policy positions, and to keep reminding everyone that Labour put the country in this position. This is linked to personal attacks on Ed Miliband as both a union appointee, and as the author of Labour's election manifesto. Both could prove very damaging to Ed Miliband if they stick. These overall narratives are possibly the most important parts of the debates, because the generalised caricatures of the leaders are what filters down to the majority of the public, who are turned off by the weekly 'Punch and Judy politics' of PMQs.

Tony Blair famously remarked in A Journey that PMQs were the most nerve-racking part of being Prime Minister, and that he still gets nervous every Wednesday in anticipation. That such a capable politician and debater as Blair should say that about PMQs demonstrates how difficult they are to navigate, and how hard they are to 'win'.