Finally, a fight to watch

Something must have happened at Number 10 this week.

It was as though somebody opened a door in the side of Gordon Brown’s head, climbed in, found the light switch and turned it on.

He dumped his ‘morals’ about not making personal attacks, and launched a withering assault on Cameron the man.

The day started off looking like every other PMQs for months – “your policies have left us in recession, when everyone else is out” Vs “you have no policies; this is what we’ve done that you opposed”.

But then Brown came out with something that took everyone, and Cameron, by surprise.

“The voice maybe that of a modern public relations man, the mindset is that of the 1930s,” said the PM.

It was not a killer blow and it smelt like Brown had only just remembered the pre-prepared line and slipped it in, but it didn’t matter.

An attack on Cameron the slick salesman has been cried out for from the Labour benches. Here it was, and the House came to life.

Cameron defended dismissively, “I think that one must have sounded great in the bunker.”

He then hit back launching a counter attack on Ed Balls that raised the stakes – “you would have thought he would spend more time in his ultra marginal constituency. Perhaps he agrees with us, that the more he meets people the more likely we are to win it.”

Cameron then got back to the old lines. If the PM had responded alike DC might have taken the day.

But the Labour leader, and it feels like a long time since he’s really been that at PMQs, kept his guns firmly on Cameron.

“The more he talks, the less he actually says.”

By this time there was a flood of background noise swirling around the Commons floor, as the pair began to spar over inheritance tax.

Cameron accused Brown of raising the threshold, Brown had the final word.

His attack was essentially an old one – Tories want tax breaks for the few, Labour wants public services for the many. But with the House in the mood it was it scored the point.

“With him and Mr Goldsmith, their inheritance tax policy seems to have been dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton,” he said.

I can’t help but feel that Cameron expected today to be like every other PMQs recently and was caught with his pants down. He has some serious thinking to do if he wants to keep on top of things.

Meanwhile Brown has to prove that this was not a momentary spark and that he can keep the pressure up in this way.

Given that many of the PM’s attacks came from the same ideological ground he’s always fought on, he proved today that often on the Commons floor it’s not so much what you say, but how you say it, that counts.