Ed Miliband accuses PM of siding with Myleene Klass over mansion tax

Ed Miliband has risked a further confrontation with Myleene Klass after he accused David Cameron of siding with the pop star and television presenter in sympathising with people forced to pay “£2m for a garage”.

As Nick Clegg waded into the row, by saying that £2m would pay for “some garage”, the Labour leader challenged the prime minister to explain why he favoured the bedroom tax while opposing a tax on properties worth more than £2m.

“[The prime minister] only feels the pain of people struggling to find a £2m garage,” Miliband said, drawing a link between Cameron and Klass. The pop star said during a joint television appearance with Miliband on Monday night that £2m would often only pay for a garage in London.

Miliband, who faced criticism for a hesitant response after Klass launched an aggressive attack on Labour’s plan to raise an extra £1.25bn for the NHS through the mansion tax, alluded to their clash after the prime minister said Miliband had been humiliated on ITV1’s The Agenda on Monday night. Cameron told MPs: “What he has had in the last week is a pasting from a pop star.”

Miliband went on the offensive as he mounted a strong defence of Labour’s plan to increase NHS funding with a tax on properties worth more than £2m in contrast to the Tories who were, he said, penalising the poor through the bedroom tax. The Labour leader claimed that the NHS needed extra resources as he tried to show the government was uncaring by citing the example of a victim of domestic violence who is to be charged the bedroom tax on her panic room.

The prime minister said a discretionary fund was available in such cases. Miliband said: “Many of these victims of domestic violence are not getting the hardship payment, and protecting the victims of domestic violence should not be a matter of discretion; it is a matter of principle. Nothing better illustrates the contrast between the values of this side of the house and that side of the house.”

The Labour leader said it was right to impose the mansion tax because the NHS needed extra resources. He said: “The truth is the NHS is going backwards on his watch and the British people know it. We are going to campaign on the NHS between now and the general election because he has failed on the NHS.

“We all know why this prime minister thinks the bedroom tax is great and the mansion tax to fund the NHS is terrible. If you have got big money, you have got a friend in this prime minister. If you haven’t, he couldn’t care less.”

The prime minister replied to Miliband: “It is fair to say his week hasn’t got any better. This was the week when Myleene Klass wiped the floor with him in a television programme and this was the week when there was an opinion poll in Scotland that shows that more people believe in the Loch Ness monster than believe in his leadership. The only problem for the Labour party is he does actually exist.”

The prime minister had earlier said: “We’re certainly not seeing a Klass act opposite, I have to say. In the last week he’s been called useless, hopeless, out of his depth, doesn’t cut it and an absolute disaster and that is just what the frontbench think.”