Cameron: Miliband should put “both of his left feet forward”

Left Foot Forward

This lunchtime, Ed Miliband squared up to David Cameron – who gave Left Foot Forward a special mention – for his first PMQs since becoming Labour leader.

Ed Miliband took to the despatch box today and squared up to David Cameron – who gave Left Foot Forward a special mention – for his first PMQs since being elected as leader of the Labour party. And after some early formalities, Miliband immediately began to attack the Government over the handling of its child benefit policy:

“Let’s be honest, the Chancellor sits there, this policy has been a shambles from day one. The rest of the cabinet knew nothing about it, the local government secretary said he had found out from the media that it was being announced, the children’s minister, I can’t see him, he went on the run because he was too scared to defend the policy.

“I bet the Prime Minister wishes the BBC blackout had gone ahead it was such a shambles, his conference.”

This was Miliband’s swift response to Cameron’s criticism of Labour; in particular that it offered “no alternative”. The prime minister cited Miliband’s July interview with Left Foot Forward, and taunted the new Leader of the Opposition:

“He said in July this year, ‘Whoever is the Labour leader will be that the time of the spending review have to shadow they have an alternative plan’. Where is the alternative plan?

“This was a speech he made to an organisation called Left Foot Forward, could I suggest he puts both of his left feet forward and tell us what the plan is?”

Watch it:

Other highlights of the exchange included Miliband mocking Cameron’s preposterous “Cameron Direct” events – one such event held in Bolton, where the prime minister promised to defend child benefit as it was. Miliband demonstrated early confidence, mocking the prime minister for evading his questions:

“That’s naught out of two on straight answers, straight answers to straight questions.”

Another well-timed joke saw Miliband turn the prime minister’s tactic of answering questions with another question back onto him:

“I’m new to this game, but I ask the questions and he should answer them.”

Although it did not represent a comprehensive victory for Miliband, it would have certainly eased any remaining fears people may have had that he wasn’t up to the task.

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17 Responses to “Cameron: Miliband should put “both of his left feet forward””

  1. Anthony Parker

    RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Miliband should put "both of his left feet forward": http://bit.ly/crIz0h – vid of #PMQs mention of LFF

  2. Shamik Das

    Cameron: Miliband should put "both of his left feet forward": http://bit.ly/crIz0h – vid of #PMQs mention of @leftfootfwd

  3. Anon E Mouse

    I’ve said previously I think it is something morally wrong for the shelf stacker on 12 hour nights at Tesco’s paying taxes to give child benefits to Eric Clapton on £700k for a 90 minute night at the Royal Albert Hall or to Ed Miliband who clearly doesn’t need it.

    Irrespective of not caring about poor people I have to say Ed Miliband did very well especially for his first PMQ’s.

    In fact Gordon Brown didn’t have a single PMQ’s as impressive as this. Ed Miliband surprises me – I disagree with his message but the delivery was pretty faultless…

  4. R.Read

    Cameron is laughing all the way to the ballot box, over child benefit, as I’ve argued over at http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/10/07/three-reasons-why-the-child-benefits-fiasco-could-be-a-tory-master-stroke/ . Miliband badly needs to change tack on this one.

  5. R.Read

    It is crystal clear in this video from PMQs – Cameron gets to pose now as the one who cares about fairness. It is disastrous.
    The only way out of this is to defend the policy on UNIVERSALIST grounds. And to warn that the NHS is next in line – which is what people are whispering, btw, over at Policy Exchange and at Reform…

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