Brown does well

It irritates me intensely to write this, but in all fairness I must acknowledge that Gordon Brown performed very well (even if not brilliantly) in his first outing at Prime Minister's Questions - he held his own reasonably well in the face of persistent questionning by David Cameron on the matter of necessary measures to enhance the security of this country (*). I was not entirely convinced by some of Brown's responses (you don't say - Ed.), but he certainly didn't do badly; he managed to avoid (just as Blair used to do) answering certain specific questions. It was certainly correct of David Cameron to use all his 6 questions on security - he too did well, but not not score a direct hit. Generally pretty balanced, although I thought Cameron had it by an edge.

As for Menzies Campbell, speaking for the LidDems, he asked perfectly sensible questions (he managed to slip three questions into one, without being adminished by the Speaker), but Brown easily batted him away. The LibDems, it seems to me, will merely drift whilst he remains Leader - not that this bothers me particularly.

(*) Although as Michael Heseltine, speaking on 'The Daily Politics', pointed out it is clear that Brown's mastery of Security/Defence issues is mediocre at best and that he had to be 'rescued' by former Home Secretary John Reid after a totally nondescript answer. He also (Brown) introduced a rather whiny tone by reminding us he had only been in the job for five days and constantly referring to Treasury matters - his one solid announcement being an increase in spending on ChildLine, a response to a question which was very obviously 'planted' to be asked by a tame Labour MP.