Today’s PMQs will be regarded by most as one to forget. As expected, Ed Miliband devoted all six of his questions to the Ukraine crisis (Labour’s Jon Ashworth has written to Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood regarding the Patrick Rock affair) and wisely struck a statesmanlike tone. Indeed, his last question wasn’t actually a question but a commitment to offer the government Labour’s “full support” at this “delicate and dangerous moment for international security”.
Yet the consensual tone masked the potential for significant differences to emerge between Miliband and Cameron over how to punish Russia for its breach of sovereignty. Following the leak of extracts from a No. 10 document suggesting that “the UK should not support for now trade sanctions or close London’s financial centre to Russians” (presumably because of the consequences for UK business), Miliband asked the PM what the UK would be tabling at the EU summit tomorrow and whether he was keeping open the option of sanctions. Cameron simply replied that there would be “costs and consequences” for Russia, but failed to offer any more detail.
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