Newsroom Blog

When a celebrity stops in to watch prime minister's questions we often know about it - Bruce Forysth and his wife caused quite a stir earlier this year, although not as much as Shilpa Shetty the year before.

This Wednesday comedian Paul Merton was watching unobtrusively from behind the press gallery, and I caught up with him afterwards to ask what he made of it all. You can hear his views - he thought it was a win for Brown - in this week's ePolitix podcast.

We've also been speaking to Kim Howells about the revival of Gordon Brown, while Michael Fallon looks ahead to next week's pre-Budget Report.

With Brown's new-found skill at the despatch box in mind we've also spoken to Sky News political editor turned author Adam Boulton, who talks about the different styles of David Cameron and the prime minister.

To subscribe to the podcast, which is published every Thursday, via iTunes click here.

Andrew Alexander has delivered his verdict from the Commons chamber here, a narrow victory for Gordon Brown in his book.

For my part from the television pictures I'd say that was about right, with an honourable mention for Nick Clegg.

After a rocky start, the Lib Dem leader is getting better and better at PMQs, usually choosing good subjects, finding an appropriate form of words to express his anger and appearing to stand outside the Cameron-Brown spat that so turns off the public and disfigured proceedings last week.

But, as William Hague found, and polls show, this appears to be having no impact whatsoever on the polls.

David Cameron has decided to take a massive political gamble and abandon his party's commitment to match Labour's spending commitments.

With the Tory leader and his shadow chancellor taking increasing flak for failing to counter Gordon Brown's rising political stock over his handling of the economic crisis, the leadership had to do something dramatic.

Having lived in fear of being accused of threatening to cut public services Cameron has decided that the recession actually provides him with an opportunity to take a radically different course from the government.

This will please the Conservative right-wing who have been agitating for a spending and tax cutting agenda, even the sacking of Osborne.

It also provides the electorate with a clear choice between Labour attempting to massively borrow to cut tax and spend more to mitigate the effects of the downturn and the Tory's spending and limited tax cuts.

The test for Cameron's new approach will come very soon when he will have to decide whether to vote against the government's Christmas tax cuts that will appear in the pre-Budget report.

New Forest East MP Julian Lewis, who has become something of a campaigner against the noisy protesters in Parliament Square, has just raised the subject again in a point of order following local government questions.

The Tory MP said he had received a letter from Westminster City Council, the local authority responsible for the square in front of the Palace of Westminster, saying they have no plans to prosecute any of the protesters.

As we've noted before, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act bans all unlicensed protests on Parliament Square - with the exemption of Brian Haw, who is allowed to stay in residence because his occupation pre-dates the law.

Lewis said the council had told him they were reluctant to prosecute because "the courts would be unlikely to impose a penalty much beyond a nominal fine".

He contrasted this with a recent report - one I can't find online - that Westminster City had ordered Debenhams to stop playing Christmas carols outside their store because, in the words of its 'noise team manager', "we don't think it's fair for hundreds of thousands of daily visitors to be bombarded by loud music as they walk past shops".

Lewis said: "Perhaps we should advise Debenhams that they should intersperse the carols with terms of abuse of politicians and our armed forces in order to be able to play their carols."

This morning's DCMS committee hearing into the BBC's commercial operations was, unsurprisingly, dominated by questions about "Sachsgate".

So keen were the MPs to ask director general Mark Thompson and BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons about the Ross and Brand scandal, the witnesses were kept in the hot seat for an hour longer than scheduled - until Sir Michael started to warn he was going to miss his train to Cardiff.

When they did get onto the subject of the inquiry proper, there was an interesting suggestion that the corporation has toned down its plans for BBC Local.

The service would see video news added to its network of local websites, and is under fire from commercial media providers concerned that BBC muscle will jeopardise local papers and TV.

But Thompson said the proposals are now more than four years old - pre-dating his arrival as DG - and have since become much more "focused".

He suggested the websites would allow local councillors and interest groups to access the public, but would be "punctiliously public service" rather than the "super-local TV" originally envisaged.

Amid the furore over 'sex education for five-year-olds' an MP has just suggested that sex education should be scrapped altogether. According to Conservative Philip Davies, giving young people more information has led to an increase in teenage pregnancies.

"The more sex education we seem to have had, the more unwanted pregnancies and teenage pregnancies we seem to have had," the Shipley MP said.

Claiming that "more sex education isn't the answer", he proposed that "perhaps less sex education or perhaps even no sex education" might help tackle the problem.

Remarking on the "looks on the faces of the frontbench opposite", schools minister Jim Knight said he was pleased Davies "doesn't reflect the opinion of his party's frontbench".

She may not have found herself in the dole queue after leaving the security service last year, but Baroness Manningham-Buller will have some empathy with the millions of people left out of work as a result of the global recession.

In an interview with the House Magazine, the peer spoke of the grief she felt at leaving the Security Service after 30 years.

"I think I was very fortunate, and privileged, to have a fascinating and rewarding career in the Service," she said. "Leaving it, which I had always decided to do after a total of 10 years as deputy director general and director general, was a bit like bereavement.

"What do I miss? My friends and colleagues there and in other organisations with whom I worked in the UK and overseas."

So much for taking a step back and writing his book, Ken Livingstone continues to make his voice heard, this time by launching a new coalition. The Progressive London blog is available here.

Lynne Featherstone has re-opened the debate following that Hazel Blears speech on political engagement.

This Liberal Democrat blogger criticises the Sun for its coverage of rumours that London mayoral candidate and former Police chief Brian Paddick will appear on reality TV show "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here".

Elsewhere, shadow Europe minister David Jones reflects on the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey and David Miliband casts his mind back to a 1970s Remembrance Sunday.

Jim Knight, Michael Gove, David Laws and Lord Baker on education

Sam Macrory on the row over regional select committees

Richard Hall explores the prime minister's Glenrothes by-election boost

Profile: David Willetts

And Charles Kennedy meets cartoonist Martin Rowson

Read the whole issue online

Culture, media and sport questions should be renamed BBC questions if today's Commons exchanges were anything to go by. Culture secretary Andy Burnham spent a large chunk of his time at the despatch box defending the broadcaster from attacks ranging from the ongoing Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross furore to the large bonuses bestowed on BBC personnel.

Denis MacShane pointed out that were he to use "that English vernacular word that begins with 'f' and ends with 'k' you would chop me off at the knees if not higher before I'd even got up". And bemoaning the "really offensive language" on TV, the former Europe minister called on the secretary of state to "tell the BBC, please tell Ofcom, you don't hear that in France, you don't hear it in Germany, you don't hear it in America". "Why has British broadcasting got to be in the linguistic sewer of our great language?" he asked.

Another amusing non-BBC related moment came when Burnham gave his support to X Factor reject Laura White. Describing his Leigh constituent as "wonderful and talented", he said it had been a "very harsh" decision to vote her out on Saturday.

I have a theyworkforyou alert to keep up with comments - always worth reading - in the Lords by Baroness Trumpington.

Recent inimitable contributions from the 86-year-old former agriculture minister and one time mayor of Cambridge include:

On attempts to reduce junk mail: "My Lords, does the minister agree that he is on a hiding to nothing and cannot win on this issue? Is he aware that I am entirely dressed by junk mail?"

On Boris Johnson's decision to scrap the planned pedestrianisation of Parliament Square: It was "extremely helpful to those of us who find it impossible to get home without a taxi. There are many disabled people here, quite apart from visitors. This House exists for its occupants, not for visitors. If any change is going to be made to Parliament Square, could those little tent people be moved to Marble Arch?"

On visitors to Parliament: "I sometimes wonder, looking at the very, very tiny children who come here, how much they will learn about the work done here and about this place. Is there any age limit? I sometimes think that they come here when they are a little too young."

On speed 'lumps': "My Lords, what is the government's view on removing lumps in the road and replacing them with cameras? I am told that these lumps cause bad emissions from cars and that they are equally bad for the cars themselves. It would be a great benefit to Prince of Wales Drive in Battersea if only we could have cameras and not lumps."

Something of a personal crusade, on addressing peers in the house: "My Lords, does the noble Baroness find as irritating as I do ministers who start everything off with, 'Well, my Lords'? Are they telling me that they are well? Are they asking me whether I am well? In either case, I hope that she will agree that it is incorrect."

Trumpington is a small village just outside Cambridge, and there's a great story here about how she chose her title.

Slightly later than usual due to technical difficulties at Westminster Tower, our weekly podcast is here.

We've been talking to MPs Lembit Opik and Parmjit Dhanda about PMQs and the Obama effect at Westminster, and looking forward to next week's business we've also spoken to shadow Olympics minister Hugh Robertson and parliamentary expert Lord Norton of Louth.

If you missed our verdict on this week's PMQs - even scores all round this time - you can read it here.

Barack Obama's victory in the US election dominated proceedings at this week's prime minister's questions, but the Independent's Open House claims the Commons failed to capture the magic of the day.

And as politicians from across the House immersed themselves in Obamamania, Tomos Livingstone advises David Cameron to focus on being the new Mr Cameron, and not the new president-elect.

Liberal Burblings' Paul Walter is delighted with the result, but In The Brown is more cynical.

Elsewhere, Guido has something to say about Hazel Blears' claim that he is among the bloggers fuelling "cynicism and despair" in politics.

The Guardian picks up on this Parliament interactive feature on the original Guy Fawkes.

And John Prescott, who was campaiging in Glenrothes today ahead of the by-election, apparently got a telling off from staff at Waverley station for leaving his bags unattended.

As well as MPs' endless attempts to associate themselves with Barack Obama (apparently he won some small poll the other day), PMQs was notable for David Cameron's continued attempts to eschew parliamentary procedure and address Gordon Brown directly, rather than through the Speaker.

So instead of calling him the prime minister or right honourable gentleman, as is the custom, the Tory leader instead said to Brown: "You killed change when you bottled that election and you buried change when you appointed Peter Mandelson*."

It is a tactic Cameron has increasingly deployed in recent weeks, the point presumably being to make for a more effective soundbite and disassociate himself from Parliament's archaic language.

But Labour MPs were determined not to let him get away with it again, barracking enough to force the Speaker to intervene and remind Cameron that he "knows the procedures of the House".

Brown himself later said that the exchange showed that Cameron is a "novice on parliamentary procedure".

*Technically of course, this should have been the Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool as well.

A funny moment during Jamie Oliver's appearance before the Commons health committee came when Conservative MP Peter Bone offered insight into his teenage dating tips.

Discussing plans to make cooking lessons compulsory for 11- to 14-year-olds, the Wellingborough MP said he chose domestic science over woodwork because "I thought girls - domestic science, so I'll go to domestic science".

The Naked Chef quipped to chuckles that he was clearly "very clever", but with his mind elsewhere the MP did not pick up many skills in the kitchen and recalls that the dog got most of the benefits of his culinary efforts.

Oliver also got a laugh when, discussing the marketing of unhealthy products, he remarked that only a madman would want to eat Britain's most controversial spread in large quantities.

"Marmite... has some really good nutritional features but is obviously high in salt," he told MPs. "But you'd never want to eat a kilo of Marmite would you?"