The Chief Whip’s smile was as thin as Twiggy

RECEIVED wisdom said that Edward Miliband would walk it at Prime Minister’s Questions. Received wisdom was wrong. Mr Miliband did have the advantage of being able to ask David Cameron about the alleged ‘pleb’ insult thrown at Downing Street police by Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell.

It was the first PMQs since an incident which has now acquired the significance, nearly, of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. All right, the vehicle involved was a bicycle (Mr Mitchell’s sit-up-and-beg) and not a Gräfund Stift open-tourer motor car, but one must not quibble. Mr Mitchell yesterday sat in the Chief’s traditional place at the end of the Government bench, a yard to Mr Cameron’s right. He looked properly wretched, hands clasped awkwardly at his groin when they were not patting his parted fringe. On his pinched lips lay a smile as thin as Twiggy.

It was almost possible (almost) to feel sorry for Mr Mitchell. He was Stress made flesh. Anxiety in a twopiece suit.

If Mr Miliband had a Plebgate advantage, he also faced a disadvantage. Shortly before PMQs, as happens regularly, the latest unemployment statistics were published. They showed continued, rather amazing growth in jobs. In other words, the OsborneDuncan Smith plan on welfare and employment is working. This was good news, though not for the Labour Party.

PMQs having began at noon, it was eight minutes before we reached the start of the real action. Before that there were various obsequies to be heard: to the latest military dead, to the police dead, and to two backbench Labour MPs who died recently. I hope it will not be thought improper to observe that since the middle Blair years there has been tributes-inflation. Politicians enjoy saluting the dead. You do not have to be a jaded cynic to accept that tributes do sometimes become a form of political positioning. Mr Cameron has taken it to new levels.

No sooner had he finished coating the departed in praise than Labour’s wee William Bain (Glasgow NE) was on his hind legs with Question One, calling Mr Cameron ‘this divisive Prime Minister’. That ‘divisive’ felt mistimed, given that Mr Cameron had just been so generous about two late Labour Members. Mr Miliband, finally approaching the despatch box, had no option but to ask a couple of questions about employment rates. He tried to identify unwelcome trends in the figures but he was far happier talking about Mr Mitchell and the police. I thought he might make one sharp dig and then leave it to his backbench grunts. Not a bit of it. He devoted most of his time to that now muchdiscussed and much-disputed Mitchell temper tantrum.

By the way, the latest theory at Westminster is that Mr Mitchell may indeed NOT have said ‘pleb’ but instead said ‘ Plod’. Next thing we know, PC Plod’s friend Noddy from the Enid Blyton stories will be telling us he was fiddled with by Sir Jimmy Savile.

Mr Miliband shouted at Mr Cameron, who shouted back. Mr Miliband shouted at shrinking Mr Mitchell, who shook his head. Mr Miliband picked fights with imaginary hecklers and honked like a sealion about Mr Mitchell being ‘toast’.

All this on a day when the employment figures came in so strongly for the Cameroons. Displacement activity by Mr Miliband, perhaps.

MR Cameron, in response, had a bite at Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, who was hyperventilating next to Mr Miliband. The PM told Mr Balls he was going to be in Opposition for ‘a very, very long time – get yourself comfortable’. The House went loopy. Speaker Bercow was practically washed into the Bay of Biscay. Everyone’s pet hate, Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda) waded into the action and was shredded. Further gaiety and fake outrage.

Mr Cameron finished with a crack about how Mr Miliband was about to go on a march with his trade union paymasters. ‘The most lucrative sponsored walk in history!’ he said. With that, the two combatants left, Mr Cameron looking the perkier. And Mr Mitchell swallowed with relief.