Accordingly I emailed (pownallmg@parliament.uk) demanding that he revise his position in the interest on not ending up knackering our constitution and looking like Gorbals Mick.

A few hundred more like that and he might just reconsider.

Over to you, fellow conspirators!

The Clerk should be hauled over the coals by the Lords authorities and told to sort this out PDQ before bringing the Lords into even greater disrepute.

This utterly disgraceful situation cannot be allowed to stand.

He says a lot of the right things, beyond doubt. I agree with him a lot of the time. But I can’t forget where he came from (the NF were a nasty lot).

BUT UKIP SAYS THE SAME THINGS, AND, IF IT SURVIVES ITS COURT CASE, WOULD EVEN GET US OUT OF THE EU – quite a bonus!

Everyone on the front benches ready for the off, leaning forward and wearing poppies.

Crispin Blunt… Territorials in his area still can’t train till next April! What effect will this have on recruitment? Gordy says anyone going to Afghanistan WILL get training.

Scottish voice congratulating those medical staff already vaccinating people against swine flu in Fife (!) Opportunity for the Gorgon to say how ‘we are ahead of the world in making sure vaccine and antivirals are available to all who need them’.

Dave… The planned postal strikes are bad for everyone including Royal Mail. Gordy says the same, but urges negotiations… going to ACAS. Won’t join with Dave in a combined letter asking them to give up the strike. Dave quotes Peter Mandelson on the strike… Privatise! Gordy says: ‘There is no commercial buyer!’ PM says: ‘This strike is all about modernisation and the implementation of it… Lots of noise from house… from both sides.

Dave says it is all nonsense. The reason that the PM can’t sell the Royal Mail is that he can’t convince his own backbenchers. THAT’S why he can’t sell the Royal Mail. Angry voice and angry stance. Ridiculing: ‘Why not? He’s even selling the Dartford Crossing!’

Prime Minister gesticulating… saying: ‘We want negotiation and arbitration… Already 40,000 jobs have gone. We mustn’t bring this strike into the political arena’… Horse laughs all round. Labour jeers and laughs directed at Cameron. Cameron, also fiercely, quotes Pat McFaddyn… about the PM being weak on the strike… ‘The unions have scented blood’.

Cameron says the PM needs to be courageous and show leadership… ‘The PM just sits in his bunker and can’t even decide what kind of biscuits he likes.’

PM goes into tractor stats mode: ‘The opposition have been wrong on’… lists about 500 irrelevant items…’

Lindsay Cooper… On the failure to develop the Ormskirk bypass, and on the lack of regeneration in Skelmersdale. PM says he has visited W Lancashire… PM wanting to help: ‘We must maintain growth in the economy in order to afford it.’

Nick Clegg says he asked PM to break up the big banks last August. Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England asked for this yesterday… Separation of retail and investment functions is essential. PM replies that retail and investment banks being joined is not the point. ‘True regulation’ is the problem. Clegg says banks are currently a cartel; taxpayers are bailing them out with blank cheques… Clegg asks for a windfall profit tax.

Clegg is wrong says PM! (Surpise all round) PM shouts: ‘We shall make money out of all this! We are already restructuring the banking system.’

Paul Flynn: ‘Why should our brave soldiers put their lives at risk in order to
re-elect the corrupt Karzai?’ Lots of murmuring from the MPs. PM says that we will continue to help the ‘infant Afghan democracy.’ We shall support the new election so that, eventually, the troups will be able to come home.

Additional help for the hospice movement asked for by back bencher. PM says he is ‘trying to give more money’, and ‘trying to see what we can do in the future.’

Lynne Jones… Why can’t govt depts contact to reduce greenhouse reduce gas emissions by 10% by 2010… PM, given this smarvellous opportunity… switches from the particular to the general, as usual, talking at length about the future Copenhagen conference on global warming.

Mr Brady… Altringham in Cheshire… ‘Why should my constituents’ taxes be raised so that the PMs constituents can have their taxes lowered?’… PM stalls and blathers over his answer…

Jackie Smith (What no catcalls?… Well, hardly any…) Comments on the work of Surestart centres… Plans of the party opposite may curtail Surestart… PM then waxes lyrical on 3,000 Surestart centres, soon to be 3 and half thousand… throughout the country, some in every constituency. PM says ‘We shall keep them the Tories will cut them’… (Actually I’m interested in this topic and know that the PM he is not quite right. I have heard Cameron say the Tories will ‘build on them’.) Hmmm.

Question on pensions from back bencher… ‘It may still be six years before the earnings link will be restored’… PM, bad temperedly: ‘We have done MORE than this… winter fuel payment etc etc etc’

back bencher: on pleural plaques victims… (This I believe is the serious precursor of fatal mesothelioma, a lung affliction, which does not as yet qualify for industrial injury payments… until it advances to the terminal cancerous condition itself.) PM will meet the MP in person to discuss.

Back bencher… In 2005 Blair surrendered the EU tax concession/settlement… PM jumps in at once, cutting him off, chucking out the statistics left right and centre: 3 million jobs depend on trade with the EU, 3/4 million companies trade with EU… 60% of all our trade is with the EU etc etc etc

Jim Dobbyn… Diabetes UK report… Dealing with pre diabetes conditions and thereby preventing a lot of type 2 diabetes… PM says: ‘We are offering check ups… refs obesity, exercise, ‘change for life’ programmes and healthy diet…

Peter Robinson… Funding for justice in N. Ireleand… ‘What will happen if there are ‘emergencies’ in N Ireland?’… They don’t want to raid money for health and education for this purpose. PM says that we are in the final stage of devolution… We have made provision for a reserve for exceptional security needs. We have given extra money this yea,r and shall do so if necessary in the future.

Ronnie Campbell… ‘The banks have made the economic mess. Why do the poor and the pensioners have to pay for it?’… PM cross again… ‘That is why we took action. No savers have lost money… We are making reforms. We must do them globally or business will move from one country to another’…

Mr Grey… Copenhagen talks… ‘What will you put forward to show we can make compromises to alleviate climate change?… What about the third runway at Heath Row?’… Rah rah rah from the troops… Blather from the PM.

Mr Banks. People approaching retirement, especially women aproaching retirement, need to know what to expect when… Not very illuminating answer…

DPP and assisted suicide. The public prosecutor should not decide such things… Put the debate before the house… PM agrees that the house makes the law and Keir Starmer is only writing a few guidelines on how it might be interpreted.

Anderson… N Ireland .. ‘What shall we do next to implement justice devolution?’… PM says that next comes consultation with the community. Cross community voting on the devolution of policing and justice…

Gary Streeter. Teachers pay is set nationally. Currently children in Devon schools receive less money than city children… Why is this?… Why should children in poor rural areas be discriminated against? PM does not reply merely saying: saying: ‘The Tories are going to cut… cut… cut…’

Katie Clark… About employment rights for temporary and part time workers. PM very short reply which I did not catch.

Back bencher from Cumbria. Cancer units should not be more than 40mins away from any patient. Kendal has no such unit. All his constituents are more than 40 mins away. PM speaks generally yet again… on what he has done, and will do for cancer patients

It was quite a lively house. Clegg came over very well on the banks and scored a few definite hits. There were several ‘planted’ questions from Labour back benchers allowing the PM to warble on and waste time speaking very generally about his current and future policies.

Cameron seemed rather cantankerous, but kept pegging away at the postal strike issue, scoring several hits: showing the PM up as a coward for abandoning plans to privatise the Royal Mail… (PM ‘But there were no buyers!’) He made the PM look incompetent and vascillating again… suggesting that he often doesn’t give a straight answer. (True) He looks weak and shifty. ‘He can’t even make his mind up about which biscuit he likes!’ says Diamond Dave.