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PMQs: MPs have to be reminded that people watching them 'scream like banshees' on TV will be voting in a few weeks' time

Another uninformative Prime Minister's Questions has been and gone – will it be around much longer?

Adam Withnall
Wednesday 04 March 2015 14:09 GMT
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The Speaker, John Bercow, tries to intervene at Prime Minister's Questions
The Speaker, John Bercow, tries to intervene at Prime Minister's Questions (BBC)

MPs had to be reminded yet again today that there are actually people watching them during Prime Minister’s Questions, as grown adults made chicken noises at each other in the country’s seat of power.

Ed Miliband picked the Tories' missed net migration targets and proposals for TV debates as the topics he wanted answers on from David Cameron – but it quickly became apparent he wouldn’t be getting any.

And in a point of order following the proceedings, the Labour MP Paul Flynn branded today's PMQs “the worst ever”.

Understandably, the “views of the public” were largely disparaging:

Ahead of today’s session in the Commons, the Lib Dem MP John Pugh hit out at his colleagues for “screaming like banshees” at Mr Balls last week when it was mentioned that he had forgotten the full name of a businessman who backed Labour.

“It's actually worse than the schoolyard,” he told the Commons on Tuesday, “but we'll see it repeated again at 12 o'clock tomorrow.”

Mr Bercow yesterday repeated his criticism of the way PMQs is conducted, and called for the party leaders to improve the tone of the exchanges.

Labour have proposed a “sin bin” for repeat offenders whose rowdiness persistently interrupts proceedings, while Mr Miliband said he doesn’t see PMQs as “a great advert for politics or Parliament”.

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