Lloyd Evans

Cameron had little choice today. At PMQs he played it sober and he played it statesmanlike. The Afghan issue, which is close to becoming a crisis, dominated the session. Both main party leaders were standing shoulder to shoulder, and Cameron used five of his six questions asking the same thing. ‘Are we both right in thinking we’re both right?’ Yes, said the PM, we’re right. Afghanistan’s salvation lies in the usual mantras. More ‘training up’ of security services, more help for the economy, greater attempts to root out corruption etc. It must all be ‘better targeted’ and ‘more focused’. The question of a ‘single, strong co-ordinating figure’ is being discussed in Washington. Nothing has been decided.

Does Cameron fluff PMQs on purpose? Some theorists say he lets Brown off the hook in order to keep the weakling in his job. I don’t buy that. A politician’s natural instinct makes him want to win every session, every question. But Brown sometimes sneaks through intact because Dave rarely varies his tactics. He doesn’t prepare ambushes. He never ponders what Brown wants to hear least. Today the Tories had a great opportunity. Brown’s recent flip-flop over the training of TA soldiers for Afghanistan was inspired, in part, by Dave himself, who raised the issue a fortnight ago. But Dave’s tone was wrong. He thought he was the point - not the soldiers.

A poor showing by Dave today. All he managed was a spot of outmoded Labour-bashing and a biscuit joke that didn’t exactly take the biscuit. He attacked the PM over the postal strike and quoted a minister of state admitting that union militants had been emboldened by the government’s indecision over part-privatisation. ‘This trade union,’ said Cameron, ‘can sense weakness and they see weakness in this prime minister and this government.’ Brown got huffy – but not very. He accused Cameron of cynically trying to drag the strike ‘into the political arena,’ It’s already there, said Cameron, ‘not least because the communications workers pay half his bills.

Poppy day came early to Westminster today.  Brown began proceedings by reciting the names of the 37 men killed in Afghanistan over the summer. This took two minutes. The house was silent, funereal, almost awe-struck with the solemnity of the occasion. Brown looked like a man deeply moved by personal grief as he worked his slow way through the deadly list. Ann Winterton punctured the mood with the first question, suggesting that once the Lsibon treaty is ratified the government's first duty will be 'to further the objectives of Europe in preference to those of Britain'. Brown denied this again referenced the Afghan conflict in response. When his trun came, Cameron had no choice but to add his sympathies and to engage constructively in the debate about the war budget.

Clever in its lack of cleverness. Cameron’s performance today was shrewd and unexciting, a speech of nursery-school simplicity. Large bland ideas, plain language. No detail. This was certainly no masterpiece. It didn’t have to be. Cameron’s in a holding pattern. Keep circling and he’ll land safely. Before he arrived, William Hague frustrated the eager delegates with two corporate videos of more than ordinary dullness. The BBC, flouting its own policy of censoring political broadcasts, aired both of them on BBC Parliament (albeit with the sound turned down.) First, a surpise. No less a figure than Bono, the UN's top Guilt Ambassador, spoke to the Tories about debt relief.

For Brown this was a doddle. He couldn’t fluff it. Expectations have sunk so low that all he had to do today was show up, try not to look too knackered, spout a few revivalist platitudes and make sure he didn’t fall over. The rebellion has stalled, the plotters are paralysed. Those who criticise won’t lead, while those who would lead won’t criticise. Mandy, like a protection racketeer within the cabinet, has enriched himself in the currency of ‘loyalty’ (which in these circumstances means a reluctance to coerce others to be disloyal), and yesterday he couldn’t contain his delight at the scale of his new-found wealth. And so Mr Brown, Mandy’s proudest protégé, appeared at 2 pm today on the Brighton seafront.

What a week for the LibDems. The conference began, as always, with the sound newspapers being arranged across sleeping faces as the mass snore-in started. A few hopeful souls wondered if the LibDems might finally tell us exactly what their party is for. And LibDems went about their usual business of behaving like some cuddly cult for Terribly Nice People. Then everything changed. Out came their true colours and they started scrapping in the sand-pit like a pack of ruthless cockerels. It began with Nick Clegg’s misuse of the word ‘savage’ in reference to cuts. It got worse when Vince ‘Capability’ Cable announced a muddled new levy on million-pound houses. At a stroke the Mansion-Muncher had jeopardised every Liberal Democrat vote in Greater London.