Brown hopeless again at PMQs

This might make me sound sad but if I'm in at midday on a Wednesday I will very often watch Prime Ministers Questions (PMQs). What has become increasingly unacceptable is the fact that Brown never gives an answer to a Cameron question, in fact even worse yesterday the former asked the latter a question. It is appalling that the Speaker, Michael Martin, doesn't call Brown to account - it's little wonder that people are turned off by politics.

Now of course the Leader of the Opposition will aim to ask if possible the sort of questions that a person would find difficult to answer, you know the "Have you stopped beating your wife" type of question whilst still demanding a simple "yes" or "no" response. The thing with Brown is that he is so wooden, he can't think on his feet. He just comes out with his rehearsed soundbites. Yesterday he just couldn't resist drawing attention to the known differences over Europe between Ken Clarke and David Cameron. Europe wasn't on the agenda question wise yet the idiot Brown had to make a political point. It was all so pathetic and predictable. Brown had just the one good line referring to Clarke as the "shadow Shadow Chancellor" but apart from that it was the usual lumbering performance from him and I have to repeat that the Speaker was not performing his duties to the House.

In case it's thought that I might be a Tory I can say "certainly not". I don't have any allegiance to any party - I don't support any one party more than another. It's quite possible that the Tories would also have brought the UK to its present perilous financial situation if they had been in power. I have to say though that I have very little confidence in Brown pulling us through the recession and its aftermath. Let's hope my worries about him are wrong.

A sensible question at PMQs

Sometimes on a Wednesday lunchtime I will watch Prime Ministers Questions (or PMQs for short). Not yesterday though because as I have just blogged I was out in the fresh air. By going to the 'Politics' page on the BBC News website it is possible to see a summary of the various matters raised during that half hour. It is easy to get preoccupied with the exchanges between Brown and Cameron and Brown and Clegg, good knockabout stuff maybe but all to do with points scoring. So it is always a relief when someone asks a jolly sensible question and at this PMQs there was one that was certainly worth airing.

Thank you then to Tory MP Robert Goodwill who I have just discovered represents Scarborough and Whitby. In essence he asked the PM why someone given a driving ban and then sent to prison for something else can use that time in prison towards the time they are banned from driving. Now I've noticed this before when someone gets a prison sentence say for dangerous driving but the length of the ban is incorporated in the time they are in gaol and have always thought "how ridiculous - that ban means nothing". What infuriates me is that this type of obvious anomaly hadn't previously been spotted. Well done to Mr Goodwill for putting this in the public arena.

I don't have any strong allegiance to any political party being more interested in the worth of the individual MP. Robert Goodwill has a website here which is clear and user friendly. I'm particularly pleased to see that he is an MP who is connected with his area rather than someone parachuted in from afar and has a background in agriculture as well. From what I can see one of our better MPs.