Engagements
Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister
11:30 am
Edward Miliband (Leader of the Opposition; Doncaster North, Labour)
No straight answers on police numbers, and no straight answers on the Chief Whip. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Wales says that we need real issues, but I think abusing police officers is a real issue. Just because a police officer has better manners than the Chief Whip, it does not mean that the Chief Whip should keep his job.
If a yob in a city centre on a Saturday night abused a police officer, ranting and raving, the chances are that they would be arrested and placed in the back of a police van, and rightly so. The Prime Minister would be the first in the queue to say that it was right. But while it is a night in the cell for the yobs, it is a night at the Carlton club for the Chief Whip. Is that not the clearest case there could be of total double standards?