• Prime minister calls Labour leader a student politician
• At least I didn't hang around with people who wrecked restaurants, says Miliband
David Cameron and Ed Miliband traded personal insults over tuition fees at prime minister's questions today as the government prepared for a crunch vote on the issue tomorrow.
The Labour leader accused the government of bringing in an increase in fees to make up for its reduction in funding for higher education.
Miliband accused the coalition of "pulling the ladder away" from poorer students, but Cameron accused him of opportunism and of behaving like a "student politician".
The Labour leader said he had once been a student politician, but implied that that was better that than being a member of the Bullingdon Club, the exclusive and controversial Oxford club Cameron was once part of.
Miliband said: "I wasn't hanging around with people who were throwing bread rolls and wrecking restaurants."
The exchange was a key moment for Miliband's MPs and team after the new leader failed to draw many concessions from the prime minister last week, despite the coalition being divided on the issue of tuition fees.
This week Miliband was able to go for a less inhibited attack on the coalition after an article this morning in the Times by Alan Johnson, the shadow chancellor, backing his leader's alternative to tuition fees – a graduate tax – after his previous contradiction of Miliband in this area had raised questions about the new leader's authority.
With newfound unity around his own preferred policy, Miliband dismissed Cameron's attempts to explain the benefits of the "progressive" new system, saying: "Only you could treble tuition fees and then claim it's a better deal for students. No one is convinced. Isn't it absolutely clear this policy is in chaos? Go away, think again and come up with a better proposal."
Miliband said the government was slashing public funding – by 80% – for universities and "loading the cost on to students and their families".
Cameron told him that a graduate tax would result in people on £6,000 paying back the cost of their university education. He said: "If you introduce a graduate tax you are going to be taxing people on £6,000, on £7,000, on £9,000. Where is the fairness of that? The truth of that matter is we examined a graduate tax; we know it doesn't work. Your party examined a graduate tax; they know it doesn't work. The Liberal Democrats had a look at a graduate tax; they know it doesn't work. The only reason you are backing it is because it gives you a political opportunity."
Flanked by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, and Vince Cable, the business secretary, Cameron hit back at the Labour leader, but there does appear to be some concern in government about the prospect of tomorrow's first serious rebellion within the coalition.
The Lib Dems may potentially recall the climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, from a critical environmental meeting in Mexico. This morning they outlined further concessions on the issue, announcing a further increase in the £21,000 threshold at which graduates have to repay fees. Now they will be increasing this each year – instead of every five years as planned – in line with earnings from 2016.
At PMQs, Cameron sought to make light of Labour's own indecision on higher education funding, saying Labour had first opposed tuition fees only to introduce them when in office.
"They said they wouldn't introduce tuition fees; they introduced them. They said they wouldn't introduce top-up fees; they introduced them. They said they supported the Browne review [into the funding of higher education, which recommended an increase in fees]; you wrote it into your manifesto. Why are you breaking your pledge about the Browne review?"
Referring to recent demonstrations in central London, Cameron said Miliband's idea of leadership was following what a "big crowd of students in the Mall" were demanding.
Cameron said: "He [Miliband] is behaving like a student politician, and frankly that is all he will ever be."
Miliband said: "All you can offer us is, 'You've never had it so good on Planet Cameron'. What do you have against young people? You have taken away the child trust fund, you are abolishing the educational maintenance allowance, you are scrapping the future jobs fund, and now you are trebling tuition fees.
"Isn't the truth you are pulling away the ladder because you don't understand the lives of ordinary people up and down this country?"
Turning to Clegg's party, Miliband said: "There are 57 Liberal Democrats; they are split four ways. That's something, even for the Liberal Democrats."
In a reference to the spying allegations surrounding the Russian aide to Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock, the Labour leader said: "If the Kremlin were spying on the Liberal Democrats we know why: they want a bit of light relief, frankly."