PMQs sketch: the coward and the cake Labour - as can be seen from a cursory glance at Ed Balls - like eating cake. But they also like having cake. What to do with the cake in front of them: eat it, or have it? At length the party's leadership has considered the two options, before arriving at the conclusion that the only sensible course is to go ahead and do both. This, at any rate, is their position on fuel duty. First, they demanded the Chancellor freeze it. Now that the Chancellor has done so, they attack him for it: it shows he's panicking, no one seems sure how much it'll cost, it won't help the economy anyway, etc. It's all very confusing. Either Labour think the freeze is good, or they think it's bad. Then again, why bother? They're having such fun. Today at Prime Minister's Questions, Ed Miliband took great glee in mocking George Osborne for "hiding away" when he should have been explaining himself. David Cameron guffawed at the absurdity of such a suggestion. Mr Osborne, hide away? On the contrary: "The Chancellor was announcing this tax reduction from the dispatch box!" Indeed the Chancellor did announce it from the dispatch box. But that was at 2.50 yesterday afternoon. He wasn't still at the dispatch box at 10.30pm, which was when Newsnight started. As a matter of fact, at that hour he was engaged in matters of grave national import (attending a party). And so, in his absence, it fell to Chloe Smith, a junior minister - or, to give her full title, Sacrificial Treasury Offering - to be humiliated by Jeremy Paxman over the U-turn. (Incidentally, Miss Smith's biggest mistake on Newsnight - well, apart from babbling nakedly evasive nonsense throughout - was to patronise Paxman. "Nice question!" she cooed. A schoolgirl error. Whatever you do with Paxman, you don't tease him. It's like wiggling your fingers between the bars of a cage housing a furious chimpanzee. Paxman responded in the inevitable way. Mr Cameron's efforts to defend all this weren't exactly convincing. Under pressure, he falls back on what any teacher could tell you is bad exam technique: instead of answering the question, he simply fires off anything he can think of on the given topic, whether relevant or not. Thus what he said was confident, fluent, and almost wholly specious. There was mock-sympathy for Miss Smith from Labour MPs: "Awww!" they chorused, when Mr Miliband alluded to her Newsnight misery. For some reason, she was nowhere to be seen on the Government benches. Surely she can't have been hiding away. Perhaps, like her boss last night, she was simply at a nice party.