Lloyd Evans

Hague for prime minister? According to one of the wilder Tory theories, a hung parliament could force a humiliated Cameron from office and put the trusted Hague into Number 10 at the head of a coalition government. On today’s showing Hague has lost his hunger for power. With Brown in Northern Ireland on Superman duty, Hague was pressed into service against Harriet Harman. The leader of the house arrived in a stiff tunic of imperial purple decorated with a butterfly brooch whose winged shape divided opinion. To some it suggested a phoenix-from-the-flames, to others a W-shaped recession. Hague had no trouble dominating her at PMQs. And because he knew he’d have no trouble, he took no trouble either. He was relaxed and fluent.

Here’s a phrase. Dave blew it today. That’s a harsh verdict because he used PMQs to focus on Haiti and the Doncaster torture case. Naturally Haiti dominates the news and we all know that vulnerable kids have a very special place in Dave’s heart. But this is a political scrap and he needed to show a bit of muscle in the house. Rather than cultivating his finer instincts he should have strutted into the cockfight and blasted some of Gordon’s feathers off. As it was he elicited little of value from the Doncaster case and dug himself into an unwinnable dispute about whether the review should be published in full. Gordon had a good day, bordering on excellent. At times it looked as if the entire show had been stage-managed to make him look in control and at ease.

At last, Cameron’s got it. He finally varied his tactics at PMQs today. Brown had no warning. That made the change doubly effective. First Cameron asked two easy-peasy questions about salt which the PM answered in his favourite strain of complacent pomposity. At one point I think I heard him say the nation’s supplies are so crucial that he may create a ‘salt cell’ in the middle of Britain so we never again run low on this vital condiment. Cameron then tossed aside the salt-pot and declined to ask a further question. Brown was unsettled by this. Realising the worst was yet to come, he waffled nervously through an answer to the next question from Dari Taylor (Lab, Stockton South) which focused on adoption and fostering.

After the hubbub about Hewitt ‘n’ Hoon’s plot to unseat Gordon Brown, PMQs is perhaps a distant memory. It’s certainly made my review a little later than usual. But better late than never, as today’s clash was a bloody and intriguing contest with both party leaders on combative form. Cameron seemed unusually relaxed, glib and self-confident. Perhaps he’d been tipped off about the plot. Or perhaps he’d been thrilled by the sight of his beautifully groomed coiffure in the bathroom mirror this morning. If he spent as much time on his manifesto as he did on his hair there’d be no talk of a hung parliament. But this didn’t seem to bother him today and he laid happily into the Prime Minister over the budget deficit.

Today we saw just how tricky the game can be for opposition leaders. The government sets the parliamentary agenda and holds the keys to the war-chest. Cameron’s attempts to upset the PM looked diffuse and repetitive. On Afghanistan he offered support. On Kelly he flannelled about some footling detail of parliamentary timing. And on ministerial pay he drew attention to his gravest difficulty, namely that the pre-budget report was coming up next. Brown never looked in difficulty and he cruised easily towards his Six O’Clock sound-bite. ‘The opposition leader has lost the art of communication but not alas the gift of speech.’ A poor day for Dave. Nick Clegg did much better. Gosh he’s an angry beggar isn’t he?

A terrific PMQs today. This exchange had it all. Noise, laughter, rhetoric, anger, humiliation, jokes, and dramatic swings in the balance of advantage. We even had a sighting of that great Westminster rarity – a fact.  Cameron’s first question elicited simple information. Would our troops start returning from Afghanistan in 2010 or 2011? Brown didn’t quite answer it but said that by 2011 the combined forces, including Afghans, would number 300,000, by which point the military burden ‘will start to change’. Cameron clarified. ‘That sounds more like 2011.’ Brown didn’t demur.   Turning to the economy Cameron asked why Britain is the last G20 country to come out of recession.Brown: We aren’t. What about Spain?

Fascinating details dominated PMQs today. Instead of the usual custard pie-fight this was a game of chess. Things began with talk of downpours and sandbags. Both leaders were concerned that the sodden folk of Cumbria are receiving enough hot soup and blankets. The PM reminded us that he’d recently popped up there to squelch around in his wellies shaking people’s hands and nodding sympathetically. Then Cameron pulled out a firecracker. He accused Brown of shambolic incompetence in allowing public money to flow into the hands of a front organization for Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist group whose constitution denounces non-Moslems in virulent terms. ‘They are combatants in the battlefield. Their blood is lawful, as is their property.’ One thing’s for sure.

Even before the Queen had trundled back to Buckingham Palace, Mandy had let the cat out of the bag. Speaking on BBC News he said of the Gracious Speech, ‘All these laws are relevant … and achievable. It will be for the public to decide whether they want them or not.’  There you have it. The greatest power in the land admits the Queen’s Speech is Labour’s manifesto. The response to the Gracious Speech is an enjoyably ragged parliamentary occasion, full of ancient traditions and even more ancient jokes. Frank Dobson proposed the Humble Address and spoke with pride about his Holborn constituency where the anti-Apartheid movement had been born.