An intern's view on PMQs

OBV intern Arita Pecaka had the opportunity to witness the goings-on at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions session at the House of Commons and gives her observations.

This week, I had the great opportunity to go to Prime Minister's Questions, which takes place every Wednesday at 12pm, to take in the sights and sounds of something which is a significant part of British political culture. It is naturally dramatic and expressive session which gives an insight into the current issues which are being dealt with and discussed in Parliament.

This experience was very valuable and I would, without doubt, recommend everyone to attend PMQ at least once in their life to feel the atmosphere and be part of the British democratic process. The items that were discussed this week's PMQs included Tax, G20 meeting, unemployment, growth of the economy, global population growth, upcoming strikes, environment and investment.

The House as usual was very lively and expressive and strong disagreements between Conservative and Labour Party and specifically raw, expressive and direct blames directed from Prime Minister David Cameron towards Labour leader Ed Miliband and vice versa were taken place.

Mr Miliband stated,

“First David Cameron blames the Labour government, then he blamed Europe, yesterday apparently he was blaming his cabinet colleagues for the lack of growth in our economy. The truth about this Prime Minister is when things go wrong it is never anything to do with him.”

The House was so energetic that Speaker of House of Commons, who is responsible to maintaining order in the House, had to raise his voice on several occasions, saying,

“Both the Prime Minister and the leader of opposition must be heard, it’s called democracy and free expression.”

However, my attention was mainly drawn to the party politics in the House of Commons. Across the country and the world, it is well known that Britain is very heavily based on party politics and the patterns of this are visible throughout history.

It is extremely common that parties disagree with each other and try to show that each of them is the best in running the country. However due to the Conservative and Liberal Democrats coalition government this has now significantly changed.

Usually, the leader of the Liberal Democrats Party can also direct two questions to the Prime Minister during PMQs, but as Nick Clegg is deputy prime minister and there is a coalition, there are no questions from the Lib Dems. During PMQ, Mr Clegg sits beside the Prime Minister and other Conservative cabinet ministers and agrees with the Mr Cameron's statements.

It is interesting to see how the Conservative and Lib Dem ministers, who are usually opposed, have to work together to show unity as part of the coalition government. Surprisingly for me, it seemed that Mr Clegg not only agreed with Mr Cameron's statements, but also tends to overly defend his views. This was very visible when he was supporting Prime Minister in his speech of defending current government and attacking Labour Party on the issue of immigration.

Most likely if the Lib Dems and Conservatives were in sole power, their decisions and the outcome would be different. However, as it is the case of coalition government, both parties still have to work closely together despite their differences. This was quite interesting to watch and it makes you realise that politics in this country has changed as there is a dual-party government.

In my personal view, taking everything in consideration and analysing the MP’s behaviour at PMQs, it seems that both parties in government are trying their best to support each other and work for better outcome for our country.

Arita Pecaka