Prime Minister Questions - 5th March 2014

In yesterday's Prime Minister Question Ed Miliband focused his six questions on the ongoing crises between Russia and Ukraine. 

It was a bit surprising as he could gone on various domestic topics like immigration or the resignation of the Downing Street adviser Patrick Rock.

It shows that Ed Miliband is not out to get cheap political points. As a mention of either of these topics would have been a guaranteed win. 

It probably might have impacted on how long David Cameron will stay in his job Prime Minister. 

I suspect that Ed is secretly hoping that David Cameron continues to stay in his job at least until General Election Day as he probably thinks he has a fair chance of beating him.

The actual exchanges between David Cameron and Ed Miliband was different to the weekly banter. 

It was not really about who came out on top but Ed's wise decision to avoid opportunistic wins.  

Countdown to the UK General Election

We are now fifteen months to the next General Election and things are beginning to hot up. 

The right wing media mainly the Daily Mail published articles about three senior Labour politicians Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt. 

It was mainly do with the roles in they had in the National Council of Civil Liberties and what they did or did do to get rid of affiliates the Paedophile Information Exchange. 

The Daily Mail run this story for about six days before Harriet Harman and her husband Jack Dromey responded. 

 

Although there response confirmed that they had nothing but contempt for this group. The Daily Mail have been determined to get some political capital out of this. 

I have to say that the Labour Party response was fairly late and it was somewhat a weak response. 

Ultimately if Labour want to get back in power they need up their game and be prepared for the mud slinging contest.

As the Tories aided and betted by the right wing media are ready sling some mud to get them reelected. 

If Labour want to get relected then they have to be prepared to fire back at the smears or sling some mud of their own.

Prime Minister Questions - 26th February 2014

In this weeks Prime Minister Questions Ed Miliband asked about the money being spent on flood defences and climate change. 

Both these areas are very sore point for David Cameron as the floods mainly affected areas that vote Tories.

 

During the floods it was quite evident many of these Tory supporters felt that the government response to the floods was inadequate. 

David Cameron gave is usual stock responses but you could tell that both questions really got under his skin. 

Ed Miliband has really upped his game and is doing a marvellous job and this has been reflected in the polls. 

He just needs to keep the pressure up and he is hoping that six point lead in the opinion polls will be reflected in the ballot box. 

The UK Floods - Review of political response

The floods have now subsided in most parts of the UK. So it is now all about the government response to the floods. 

I think that David Cameron has really struggled with the response to the floods.  He realises that he had to come across as decisive in decision making and show strong leadership.

David Cameron was at first trying to blame the Environment Agency to promising lots of money to the flood victims. 

This comes at a time when he has imposed bedroom tax on council tenants and more and more people are using food banks. 

So to these people David Cameron looks like he is making token gestures that will help him to win the General Election. 

So far the polls have not moved an inch towards to the Tories. Whilst Ed Miliband personal rating has improved as he setting the agenda and making David Cameron look flat footed. 

Ed Miliband has been talking up climate change. Whilst the Tories including David Cameron are very sceptical about climate   change. 

So I think Ed just needs to keep trying to get his climate change message a cross and hopefully it will start to resonate with the public before next year general election. 

Prime Minister Questions - 11th February 2014

Today's Prime Minister's questions was about the floods. Ed Miliband asked David Cameron about the proposal to make five hundred and fifty Environment Agency flood staff redundant. 

David Cameron refused to answer the question directly instead confirmed that money would be no object in helping the flood victims. 

Ed Miliband gave a very self assured performance and he stuck to facts and asked questions about jobs that David Cameron was not expecting. 

David Cameron looked little uncomfortable when responding to the questions. 

Maybe because he knows all this is out of his control and although he is promising all these resources I am not entirely sure he can deliver on his promises. 

It is notable that David Cameron has not set up a command station or special phone line that victims of the floods can call. 

It is especially worrying when I view tv images of flood victims buying and sandbagging there properties with little sign of of help from the authorities. 

So it was a commanding performance from Ed Miliband whilst David Cameron has a little bit more to be worried about. 

The politics of the floods - The blame game

Britain is currently experiencing the worst flooding in over two hundred years and the politics of the blame game is in full swing. 

I have to say that these floods have been ongoing for about two and half months. 

However it is only now it has become a political problem for David Cameron. 

It really came to the top of David Cameron's attention when Prince Charles  went to visit one of the flooded areas and then called David Cameron. 

However the Tories are already trying to pin the blame on the Environment Agency which is headed by the former Labour Minister Chris Smith. 

However Labour party have claimed that this government reduced the budget on floods defence system. 

David Cameron has been trying to claim that " dredging" is the answer. However this has been dismissed by science experts who claim this method is ineffective. 

There is more rain is expected this week and it is expected to get worse so David Cameron will need to show real leadership or will start losing valuable support from regions that normally support the Tories. 

The best PMQ's ever!!!- 5th February 2014

Every week I write a little review about PMQ's and most of the time I have say that,  I watch it a little disheartened that the policies that our affecting my life own do not really come up.

However today was different in his first question Ed asked David Cameron what he was doing about the floods affecting large parts of the UK. 

David Cameron gave his usual bog standard replies about how his government are doing everything they can and they have increased spending on this area. 

If I was one of those affected by the floods, I would have come away thinking and the Prime Minister is trying to make a political point whilst my house is under water. 

 

Ed's next set of questions where about women, public life and childcare. Ed started off noting that there was not a single women on the government front bench.

 

He went to attack David Cameron on the lack of females in his party and the widening pay gap between men and women. 

Ed stated that women are struggling to return to work due to the lack of affordable childcare. 

David Cameron was well and truly flummoxed and did not really have a credible response. 

 

Instead he tried to move the discussion to trade unions and the current train strike which fell a little flat. 

Ed played a blinder today he succintly managed to link the lack of female MP's in the Tory party to pay and childcare issues. 

They Tory back benchers where reasonably quite today as I suspect they knew that Ed Miliband had a point. 

I believe that women will be very key to any party getting a majority and hopefully Ed Miliband will continue to craft his message and ultimately get those votes in.