Prime Minister's questions - 8th April 2014

This weeks Prime Minister's questions was the last one before the Easter recess. Ed Milliband focused his six questions on the conduct and resignation of the Culture Secretary Maria Miller. 

Ed was excellent and contrary to what David Cameron was saying about Ed joining the political bandwagon. Ed came across well in trying to explain to David Cameron how is backing of Maria Miller was misguided. 

It was notable that when David Cameron was responding to Ed Milliband is normally very vocal back benchers where fairly quiet. 

 

That tells me that they may not politically agree with Ed Milliband but they understood his line of questioning and they did not want to be seen as backing Maria Miiller. 

So another strong performance by Ed Milliband  and I hope he will be able to hold into this momentum that he has built.   

Prime Minister's Questions - 2nd April 2014

In this weeks Prime Minister's Questions Ed Miliband focused his questions on the sale of the Royal Mail.

Ed Miliband won the exchange by highlighting financial mistakes that the government have made in the sale of Royal Mail. 

David Cameron's first line of defence line was that the Labour Party had thirteen to the to deal with the Royal Mail and they did not do anything. 

Ed Miliband reminded David Cameron the tax payer had lost out as David Cameron sold the Post Office too cheaply. 

Ed Miliband gave timely reminder of  implying that the Tories cannot be trusted with economy.

So Ed did well but David Cameron's responses where pretty convincing. 

Prime Minister Questions - 26th March 2014

In Wednesday's Prime Minister Questions, Ed's questions to David Cameron was mainly on the energy and gas prices. This was because one of leading gas company's decided to freeze its gas prices. 

This was one subject that Ed Miliband has campaigned heavily on. So now that gas companies are listening, Ed can really push is message about pushing for gas companies to freeze their prices. 

Ed did well again I don't think David Cameron had really prepared himself to answer questions on the energy. 

David Cameron made  little attempt to answer the questions put to him. He just really focused on personally attacking Ed Milliband and he will probably hope that this looks good to the wider audience.

Ed did well and hopefully he will carry it to the General Election and beyond. 

Spring Budget 2014 - Review

What stood out to me in George Osborne's budget speech was the parts on childcare, savings and personal tax allowances.  

This is George Osborne's  penultimate budget before the next General Election and to me everything he was offering today was about securing vital votes for the next General Election. 

George Osborne's  childcare proposals are welcome but for me and I am sure many families up and down this country it has come two years too late and do not really go far enough to alleviate the financial burden of childcare. 

Most economic commentators have described George Osbourne's increase of ISA annual limit to 15K as the 'rabbit in the hat'. 

Again I think it is a great initiative but stats show that people have started to save considerable less so raising the annual limit to 15k is great but not many people will benefit from it. 

Raising the personal tax free allowance  to £10,500 is also welcome and it means that very low income will get some additional financial help. 

But what George Osbourne's budget fails to address is the squeezed who are getting by on food banks and not much else. 

So the rather cynical side of me says that George Osbourne's will have mass appeal in the right demographic Tory voting areas. Only time will tell whether this appeal can be translated to votes on Election Day. 

Prime Minister Questions - 19th March 2014

In today's PMQ's Ed Miliband focused his two questions on the Russian/Ukraine crisis and mental health funding. 

The exchanges between Ed Milliband and David Cameron where pretty low key and this was due to the fact that the budget speech was due to take place after PMQ's. 

So neither Ed or David had the upper hand in today's exchanges. However some of the Labour back benchers asked the type of rhetorical questions which normally annoy David Cameron and made PMQ's a bit more interesting. 

So Ed gave another very assured performance but David Cameron managed to stay and look calm and collected so there was no obivious winner to me.  

UK immigration policy

As regular readers of this blog would note that I am not this current administration biggest fan.

 So when I reviewed the speech the new Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire made on immigration which included the controversial part about the rich elite employing foreign nationals. 

I couldn't believe the breathtaking hypocrisy, most of you will not have forgotten the recent advertisement that this administration run urging illegal immigrants to "go home".

We then find out that the Immigration Minister, Mark Harper, who sanctioned this advert was employing an illegal immigrant to clean his one bedroom flat. 

In the last week David Cameron, Teresa May and Nick Clegg have confirmed that they have employed foreign born nationals and two of which have gone on to get British passports. 

All this really means that the Tory chase for UKIP votes has backfired badly. What remains to be seen is whether it will matter when voters go to the polls this year for the European elections and next year General Election. 

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.