Insults and gaffes dominate business at Commons

The autumn statement was George Osborne’s moment, and he had some carefully crafted insults for his Labour Party opponents. But he was accidentally upstaged by David Cameron.

The Conservative UK prime minister, answering questions before the statement, had a prepared insult for the opposition’s treasury spokesman, Ed Balls, who had said earlier in the week he wanted to be tough on the causes of the deficit. It didn’t come out quite right.

“As he is one of the causes of the deficit,” Cameron said, referring to Ball’s time as an adviser to Gordon Brown and a treasury minister in the previous Labour government, “I think we’ve found one of the first ever examples of political maso-sadism.”