Blistering PMQs as Cameron and Miliband clash on tuition fees
By Ian Dunt
David Cameron and Ed Miliband delivered their angriest and most colourful PMQs yet, as the two party leaders clashed on tuition fees.
The Labour leader accused the prime minister of living on “planet Cameron” and being unaware of the pressures on ordinary members of the public.
Mr Cameron hit back by branding Mr Miliband a “student politician” and Labour an “organised hypocrisy”.
As student protests took place across the country ahead of tomorrow’s vote and backroom deals were made to keep potentially rebellious MPs on side, Mr Miliband accused the prime minister of loading students with debt because of cuts to the teaching budget.
Sketch: Lib Dem bashing unites Cameron and Miliband
Mr Cameron highlighted Labour’s previous support for the Browne review and accused the opposition leader of “rank hypocrisy”.
Mr Miliband then focused on the Conservatives’ coalition allies, saying the Liberal Democrats were split four ways between those supporting the policy, those abstaining, those rebelling and those calling for a delay. “That’s bad even for the Liberal Democrats,” Mr Miliband joked.
Mr Cameron hit back: “You can’t attack a plan if you don’t have a plan.”
Mr Miliband, who enjoyed a stronger performance than last week, used one of the prime minister’s statements from seven days ago against him.
“Not so much waving but drowning,” he commented of the prime minister, prompting a spectacularly angry outburst from Mr Cameron.
The Labour leader was “demonstrating complete political opportunism”, Mr Cameron said. He accused Mr Miliband of behaving like a student politician – “and that’s all he’ll ever be”.
The attack, which is sure to raise tempers among student activists gearing up for two days of protest, was met by a joke from Mr Miliband, who admitted he was a student politician but that he “wasn’t hanging around with people who were throwing bread rolls and wrecking restaurants” – a reference to Mr Cameron’s membership of the Bullingdon Club at university.
“All you can offer us is, ‘you’ve never had it so good on Planet Cameron’,” Mr Miliband continued.
“Isn’t the truth you are pulling away the ladder because you don’t understand the lives of ordinary people up and down this country?”
Analysis: Tuition fees vote on the brink
Many commentators concluded that the attack was Mr Miliband’s first attempt to capitalise on the perception of Mr Cameron as privileged and Etonian.
Some Labour figures want the opposition to make more political capital from the number of millionaires in the Cabinet, although Mr Miliband will also be nervous about being once again dubbed ‘Red Ed’.
“You can sit there for year after year – you see a political opportunity, but you’ll never be a party of government,” Mr Cameron replied.
The bitter exchanges continued when Labour MP David Hanson said the Lib Dem U-turn on tuition fees sent young people a bad message about political honesty.
“The people behaving in a way that drags politics though the mud are the people who… introduced tuition fees, introduced top-up fees, and as soon as they are out of power are running away from it,” Mr Cameron hit back, visibly angry.
Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the DUP, made a humourous comparison between Fifa officials going back on their promise to back England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup and the behaviour of Nick Clegg over tuition fees.
“When it comes to breaking promises politicians have got nothing on football management,” Mr Cameron joked back, but the jeers and pointed fingers of the Labour benches prompted another angry outburst from the prime minister.
“Who said they will never introduce top-up fees?” he shouted.
“Who said they would support the Browne review? Who is now an organised hypocrisy?”
The angry scenes come just a day before the tuition fee vote, with several Lib Dem MPs and some Tory MPs expected to rebel against the government’s plans.
Student protests are taking place across the country today but will concentrate in London tomorrow, where they will be met by a heavy police presence.
