At last week’s Labour Party Conference, much was made of Ed Miliband forgetting to directly discuss the deficit and immigration in his main leader’s speech. However, one thing I don’t recall hearing at all from anybody last week in Manchester was the idea for a public Prime Minister’s Questions.<\/p>\n
The idea was first raised in July by Ed Miliband, when he said the following:<\/p>\n
I think what we need is a public question time where regularly the prime minister submits himself or herself to questioning from members of the public in the Palace of Westminster on Wednesdays.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It received a mixed response at the time. Patrick Wintour from the Guardian labelled it a ‘cracking idea<\/a>‘, whilst Steven Fielding from Nottingham University called it a ‘PR response to a profound problem<\/a>‘.<\/p>\n
Since then, little has been said on the plan, and there’s no news of the speaker receiving more details from the Leader of the Opposition.<\/p>\n
A search for ‘Public PMQs’ takes you to all of the media announcements from July. A search for ‘People’s PMQs’ takes you to the Labour Party’s website, where it says that you can ask the Labour leader Gordon Brown a question about the upcoming 2010 general election<\/a>…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At last week’s Labour Party Conference, much was made of Ed Miliband forgetting to directly discuss the deficit and immigration in his main leader’s speech. However, one thing I don’t recall hearing at all from anybody last week in Manchester was the idea for a public Prime Minister’s Questions. The idea was first raised in … Continue reading PMQs for the people: still happening?<\/span>