A rather rambunctious Prime Ministers Questions has just finished, with the focus inevitably once again on phone hacking. The Dave and Ed show started politely enough, with a general decrying of what had gone on.
Then Ed got personal.
He wanted to know all about what Chief of Staff Ed Llewyn and Chief Strategist Steve Hilton new, and went as far as to question Llewyns role. Funnily enough, that didn’t fly with Prime Minister, who pointed out that the public want the major issues that scandal has uncovered sorted.
Labour have jumped all over this scandal, desperate to damage the Prime Minister, neatly forgetting their own associations with the Murdoch press. However, their personalisation of the issue will get us nowhere. People want the serious issues in the relationship between the press, the police service, and politicians sorted. Ed misjudged public mood at the expense of political points, and the excuse to give him backbenchers a chance to make a lot of noise.
Does Ed Miliband actually think anybody in the general public knows, or particularly cares, who Ed Llewyn and Steve Hilton are? Did he really expect the Prime Minister to go, “actually, you’re right, I’ll give Ed his P45 straight after we’re done here”. He just ended up looking more and more like a Westminster wonk, and less and less like a Prime Minister.
Seems like it’s Ed who, to coin his favourite phrase, “just doesn’t get it”.
