It was a tale of two howlers at today’s PMQs. The Prime Minister made the fatal mistake of pausing at the wrong moment. David Cameron had probed him about the recapitalised banks’ failure to lend to small businesses and Brown stood up, swelling confidently into one of his self-congratulatory orations. ‘Not only did we save the world banking system,’ he meant to say but a half-second pause after ‘world’ meant that ‘banking system’ never came out. ‘Not only did we save the world …’ The Tories howled and jeered for a full minute while the Speaker, playing the diligent killjoy, flapped his hands to calm them down. Brown recovered, sort of, by forging ahead with the rest of his eulogy, which gave Cameron plenty of time to concoct a reply. Not always an advantage. Everyone else has time to think of something better. ‘Ah. Now it’s on the record,’ was Cameron’s riposte.
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