Will EdM raise Dave’s Bullingdon past at the first PMQs?
Does the PM’s Today comment create an opening?
It seems like an age away but it’s only seven weeks – the last time that Dave and Ed faced each other at PMQs. A lot’s happened in the meantime – the increasing pressures on the financial markets and of course last month’s riots.
So how’s Ed Miliband going to use this first opportunity to question, probe, and hopefully for him, pull off what’s seen as a victory over the PM?
One thought is that he might bring up last week’s Today programme interview when Dave was pressed about his Bullingdon club past in relation to the riots. He responded: “I think we all do stupid things when we are young and we should learn the lessons.â€
As Matthew D’Ancona observed what is to stop someone arrested during the riots putting forward the “We all do stupid things when we are young, your honour†explanation?
The problem for Cameron is that it came over as though he was applying different standards to those involved in the riots than for his former Oxford University colleagues.
D’Ancona’s view was that “What Cameron should have said…. is that anyone in the Bullingdon Club who breaks the law deserves punishment every bit as tough as the Brixton rioter…the fact that he didn’t say as much was ever so slightly alarming.”
If EdM decides to go on the riots then this must be a promising line of attack particularly as Cameron has shown that he can get very irritated when Bullingdon is raised.