On form

One of the more useful effects of Brown's premiership has been to irritate Matthew Parris. At some point I can't pinpoint, Parris seemed to become a little detached from political debate. Public Interest had a great post that picked up on this a while back:

From the window of my penthouse overlooking the Thames I watch the dockers on loading their boats... I stroll back to my chaise longue, turn on my laptop, take a sip from a capuccino and contemplate the mayoral election... Gordon Brown may jostle with David Cameron across the despatch box every Wednesday. Sometimes he wins. More often he does not. The political class gets excited. Vince Cable delivers a witty put-down on Channel Four News. The political elite starts cheering from the rooftops.
But does any of this matter to the docker? Does he know who Vince Cable even is, I wonder, as I thoughtfully stroke my llama.

But, in fact, Gordon Brown is one topic that still gets Parris excited, and he's always on great form when he's laying into him. Here he is today:

Watching the faces of Douglas Alexander and Alistair Darling at Prime Minister's Questions at noon yesterday, I realised that it was not necessary to have the gifts both of sight and of hearing to realise that Brown was losing the argument, though he was to win the vote. The two Cabinet ministers were seated beside Mr Brown as, lost to logic, he flailed hopelessly around trying to defend the idiotic position he has got himself into over the 42-day detention-without-trial proposal. A blind man who could hear would have understood at once that the argument was lost. When politicians don't even pretend to answer questions, but simply take no notice, you know they've reached the end of some kind of a road....

I was surprised at how relaxed David Cameron looked and sounded...No opposition leader could be other than exhilarated at defeating a government. No opposition leader could not want to try. But a little voice in the part of the Cameron brain dealing in reason rather than passion whispers to him that two more years of Gordon Brown will not necessarily be to his disadvantage.