PMQs: Cameron mocks Ed Miliband over Scots poll

LABOUR leader Ed Miliband was mocked for “fewer people in Scotland believing in his leadership than the Loch Ness monster” during fierce exchanges in Prime Minister’s questions.

Labour party leader Ed Miliband speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons. Picture: PA

The attack by Prime Minister David Cameron came in the first PMQs since Mr Miliband had faced a failed coup from Labour backbenchers to remove him as Labour leader.

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Labour party leader Ed Miliband speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons. Picture: PA

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Mr Cameron also raised “the pasting” he received “from a pop star” - Myleene Klass - as he sought to press home Mr Miliband’s discomfort.

The Labour leader challenged the Prime Minister to back the policy at their weekly Commons face-off, complaining that the owner of a £140 million property in Hyde Park would be paying the same as someone whose home was worth “a fraction of that value”.

But Mr Cameron took the opportunity to raise Mr Miliband’s bruising encounter with the model and Hear’Say singer this week, saying she had “wiped the floor” with him.

On ITV’s Agenda, Ms Klass tore into Mr Miliband’s proposal for a levy on properties worth more than £2 million, insisting you could only buy a “garage” in London for that sort of money.

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She said the tax would hit “little grannies” whose homes had increased in value over decades rather than the super rich.

Mr Cameron said the Government had “made sure that the richest in our country have made a contribution by putting up stamp duty”.

“But the point about this is what we need is a growing economy that is providing the jobs, the livelihoods for our people,” he said.

“That is what we are getting. Whereas what he has had in the past week is a pasting from a pop star.”

He returned to the subject later in the exchanges, joking: “This was the week when Myleene Klass wiped the floor with him in a television programme and this was the week when an opinion poll in Scotland showed that more people believe in the Loch Ness monster than believe in his leadership.

“The only problem for the Labour party is he does actually exist.”

However, Mr Miliband did receive support from Mr Cameron’s coalition partner, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Pointing out that all homes worth more than £700,000 currently pay the same council tax, the Deputy Prime Minister told LBC radio his party had long wanted to introduce a mansion tax and Klass was “wrong”.

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“She also suggested that all you can buy in London was a garage for £2 million. That’s some garage,” he said. “Let’s get rid of the emotion about calling it, claiming that one person’s normal home is a mansion.

“Why don’t we treat higher value properties in the same banded way of putting council tax bands as we do on lower value properties?

“What is possibly fair about saying to a family who live in a family home in Lewisham that they pay the same council tax as an oligarch who lives in a £13m house?”

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