Westminster Sketch: Cameron rolls with the punches and lands his own blow

BOXER Muhammad Ali once said that fights are not won by training in the gym - advice that Labour leader Ed Miliband should take on board when it comes to his weekly bouts in Prime Minister's Questions.

Desperate for anything coming close to a knockout blow, it is obvious that Mr Miliband practises his questions hard before he enters the ring. He just lacks the ability to "float like a butterfly" when the unexpected happens. This was the case yesterday, as it is many other weeks, when Prime Minister David Cameron spotted his punch coming before he even walked into the Commons.

The question was a short, probing jab: "Could the Prime Minister explain to the House what in his view is the cause of yesterday's disappointing growth figures?"

He had expected the Prime Minister to duck and blame the weather for the economy shrinking by 0.5 per cent at the end of 2010 as Chancellor George Osborne had done on Tuesday. But no, Mr Cameron simply took the question on the chin. "They are disappointing growth figures and they are disappointing even when you have excluded what the Office for National Statistics say about the extreme weather," Mr Cameron said.

Surprised by this candid response, Mr Miliband nervously shuffled through his documents trying to think of a new question. But he simply asked a garbled version of the one he had prepared, pointing out that it was not only the Arctic conditions at fault. "You really need to listen to the answers," Mr Cameron mocked later.

The exchanges moved into predictable blows on whether the coalition is cutting too fast. The Prime Minister said Labour's alternative was to "spend money on things we can't afford". Mr Miliband claimed Mr Cameron's programme was "hurting but it's not working".

On a day when Mr Cameron ought to have looked vulnerable to some hard knocks it was the Labour leader who was hurting, with his tactics still not working.