PMQs show Cameron’s coalition starting to crumble
The cracks are beginning to show in the coalition.
In fact more and more are appearing every day. The PM should have been worried as soon as he read Danny Alexander’s comments about cutting the top rate of tax.
"I would say that [a tax cut] would happen over my dead body,” Alexander told the Mirror as he defended his yellow credentials. “I am Liberal Democrat – full stop, end of story.”
This was the latest obvious breaking of the ranks between coalition partners who have been ‘on message’ consistently for months.
PMQs used to be the weekly opportunity to showcase the coalition’s unity; best behaviour, no acting up, no inappropriate questions. And for the most part the agreement between David Cameron’s Conservatives and Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems worked.
But things are starting to slip.
As Ed Miliband pressed the PM for answers on why his front bench is entirely populated by men, Cameron pointed out that if the Lib Dems could offer up more women in Cabinet, there wouldn’t be so much of a problem.
That didn’t satisfy the Labour leader, who accused Cameron of running his government like an old boys club. And despite his best attempts, the PM just didn’t have a response to that.
The accusation comes in the same week as female Conservative MP Charlotte Leslie – a member of the much anticipated 2010 intake – spoke out about the realities of Westminster life. She told the BBC’s Giles Dilnot that promotions are “so obviously, and openly, not based on merit, but based on other considerations.” A big problem for Cameron.
Leslie’s concerns aren’t isolated, the PM’s female MPs have been muttering for some time. With increasing numbers choosing not to stand again in 2015, noses are starting to twitch behind closed doors. There is trouble brewing.
While many watching PMQs today might pass off Ed Miliband’s choice of questioning as a bit of a giggle, it’s not. If Cameron can’t hush the rumblings in his own ranks about his ‘women problem’, let alone his opposition, it could come back to haunt him in 2015.