Thursday – Commons decides on inquiry… or not

The prime minister’s had a wheeze. He hopes can settle the question of how to inquire into the banks – or at least settle who gets the blame if it doesn’t happen soon.

The PM will hold a Commons vote on Thursday and let MPs vote on whether they want Ed Miliband’s judge-led inquiry or his own all-party parliamentary inquiry. If Ed Miliband doesn’t agree to support a parliamentary inquiry presumably the PM proceeds with a partisan one or re-thinks.

Ed M’s people are sounding less than beaten at this point though. They insist the momentum if with them, they’ll get their way and the PM is on a concessionary slide that will end with him adopting their plans.

You certainly couldn’t accuse George Osborne of preparing the way for a cross-party consensus, either on the radio this morning or in parliament yesterday afternoon.

The “no-one would like to see the shadow chancellor in the dock more than me” line from the PM and the chancellor doesn’t look designed to win friends in the opposition party. In the Commons yesterday, George Osborne looked like a man who couldn’t resist poking Ed Balls in the eye and was looking to get the shadow chancellor’s name and reputation firmly attached to the Libor scandal.

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