Miliband lands an unexpected punch thanks to Lord Freud’s slip-up

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/15/miliband-lord-freud-minimum-wage-slip-up-pmqs

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With their most dangerous opponents lined up on the benches behind them, David Cameron and Ed Miliband fell upon each other at their first prime minister’s questions for six weeks like two unwanted labradoodles in the back of an animal rescue van. Both know that though neither of them may be long for this world, they are still safer in each other’s company than anywhere else. Miliband began by apologising for the sore throat that made him sound even more feeble than usual. The prime minister took pity. “I am sure the whole house will want his sore throat to get better soon,” he said. “I hope that, if he gets a doctor’s appointment, he will not forget it.”

Miliband was so touched by Cameron’s concern for his wellbeing that he fluffed the chance of a dig about the difficulty of seeing his GP and kept his nose to the script. Having been caught out trying to ad lib at the Labour conference, he won’t risk going off message for a while. He should also stop bothering to waste time trying to pin Cameron down on any policy details, because the prime minister just switches on the Cam-Bot, which is programmed to spew out streams of unrelated statistics on a continuous loop. Asked about tax cuts, he replied by quoting unemployment figures, though even they couldn’t raise any signs of life in the chancellor. Osborne appears to have switched from a 5-2 to a 2-5 diet and it can’t be long before he vanishes inside his suit.

Just as the Cam-Bot was reaching terminal velocity – “Up 26%, down 11%, up 17%, long-term economic plan, exterminate” – Miliband landed an unexpected punch. Did the prime minister endorse the comments of Lord Freud, his welfare reform minister, who had recently suggested that disabled people were not worth the minimum wage? The Cam-Bot turned a deep red, a sure sign this was the first he’d ever heard of Lord Freud’s slip.

“Those are not the views of the government,” he spluttered, glancing anxiously towards the work and pension secretary, Iain Duncan Smith. The Grand Inquisitor took the hint and left the chamber immediately. Moments later, Lord Freud’s cries of pain echoed throughout Westminster. Having paused to experience the full pleasures of restorative justice in action, Cameron called for an end to the matter. “I do not need lectures from anyone about looking after disabled people, so I do not want to hear any more of that.” Lord Freud’s great-grandfather would have called that wishful thinking.

If there was one person having a worse day than Freud, it was Douglas Carswell. After just three days in parliament as a Ukip MP, he has the air of a man who increasingly realises he has made a hideous mistake and can do nothing about it. The longer PMQs went on, the more pronounced his rocking became as he waited to be called. He got his chance just before the end and called for amendment to the recall of MPs bill – the deciding factor, apparently, in his defection to Ukip. Though not one that causes any other Ukip supporter to lose a second’s sleep. The prime minister showed his contempt for Carswell by breaking the habit of a lifetime. He answered the question in full. The cold shoulder doesn’t get much colder.