Ed Miliband showed once more yesterday that he is capable of getting under David Cameron's skin at Prime Minister's Questions by remarking on his close links to the City.

His "mates' rates" quip to describe the scandalous government handover of Royal Mail at a knockdown price was on a par with his earlier observation that, by lowering the top rate of income tax, Cameron was cutting taxes for "his Christmas card list."

The Prime Minister became so flustered over having his class loyalties so exposed that he claimed mistakenly that Royal Mail privatisation had been in Labour's 2010 general election manifesto largely written by Miliband.