PMQs - Money-lending under fire as Fabricant dons moustache for cash
It is an unfortunate part of British politics that whenever a government does something the opposition wants, the opposition berates them for it, writes Dan Wainwright.
Labour has been demanding action to tackle the soaring debts people face when taking out payday loans.
So one would expect the party to be pleased to hear of plans for a cap announced this week.
But for Ed Miliband, it represented a degree of hypocrisy in the Prime Minister that had to be pointed out.
David Cameron has derided the Labour leader for wanting to freeze energy prices for two years.
And now here he was doing a very un-Conservative thing and suggested some form of interference in the market.
Mr Miliband asked: "Following his U-turn on payday lending, why has he moved in two short months to believing it is a solemn duty of government?
The Prime Minister replied: "There are some very disturbing cases and for 13 years they did absolutely nothing about it."
There then followed a joke so utterly academic that it would take the rest of the column to explain to anyone who doesn't get it:
"I followed his (Mr Miliband's) interview on Desert Island Discs. He's no longer following Marx, he's loving Engels instead," the Prime Minister said.
Red Ed rolled his eyes.
He seems to have had a sense of humour by-pass because it was exactly the same sort of lame quip he would have used were the boot on the other foot.
"You'd have thought he'd spend his time trying to be the Prime Minister," he said, witheringly.
The Prime Minister turned off the chuckles and poured on the scorn.
"In three years he's never asked me a single question about payday lending," he said.
The country was eager to hear how he could square intervention in the market in one place and refuse it elsewhere.
"We don't have control of the international price of gas," Mr Cameron said. "So what we need to do is have more competition to get profits down and more regulation to get prices down.
"His version of intervention is take money off the Co-Op and don't ask any questions."
This, of course, was a reference to the scandal of the former Co-Op Bank chairman Rev Paul Flowers, who was linked with a £50,000 donation to shadow chancellor Ed Balls' office.
A special mention must be made for the awesome fake moustache worn by the Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant today.
He's raising money for Movember, the prostate cancer campaign where men grow a soup-strainer for the month.
Mr Fabricant, whose shock of blonde hair is as famous as Boris Johnson's, was unable to grow one he was happy with so ordered one over the internet.
He decided not to ask a question today for fear of collapsing in a fit of giggles.
The PM admitted he can't grow one either, so at least Fabbo's in good company.
