Was today a turning point?

Bloody Bill Brock

Well I certainly hope so. I have waited for the point where the less than enthusiastic attitude to spending money on defence would really hurt Brown. My son is a serving officer in the British Army so perhaps I am more concerned about the matter than Ahmed & Sunita of Luton.The bloody man lied about the Tories intending to cut defence spending. I very much hope the Tories punish him for it.

Moraymint

I'm desperately keen to vote Tory, but will only do so if they earn my vote. Keep this up Dave/team and we could be on to something.

Please though, for goodness sake, start talking sense on the catastrophe that is Brown's economic train crash, and what you're going to do about it: and then talk credibly and consistently.

Rory the Deplorable

I sure hope your right. The future of a whole generation rests on the Tories getting all this right...

David Lindsay

Almost everyone who cares about PMQs either writes for or comments on this blog.

DavoMax

Could be that Cameron has been waiting until he was absolutely sure he was going to face Brown at the General Election. If this is the case it shows patience, courage and some wisdom. Then again maybe the timing is coincidental. We'll see.

TrevorsDen

Moray - so you are prepared for another 5 years of Gordon then?

thats what it amounts to. if you think that you can live with that then fine, go ahead and indulge your self serving self rightiousness.

But be aware of the consequences.

Get real. I am quite frankly a hanging and flogging anti EU Conservative.

But none of that matters. what we neewd and what we must have is a new Conservative govt. Do you think you can influence a Labour govt? Or a Liblab coalition?

Your a genius if you do. but you do have a chance of influencing a Conservative govt and no matter what else you ntjhink a conservative govt will start a lot nearer your line of thinking than a brown one would.

There are limits to democracy and voters have limited power - so if you feel Labour must be replaced there is one and one only course of action. Vote Tory.

The real and ultimately ONLY power a voter has is to vote out the incumbent.

Tiberius

As all football supporters will know, it is helpful to remember Kipling's "If you can keep your head..." poem in mind at all times.

Cameron has been leader for over 4 years now, and that is a long time to keep the pressure up constantly on the Government. There have inevitably been troughs during that period, but he (and Osborne) have always snapped out of them. The brinkmanship over the autumn 2007 "election" was brilliantly executed, and last year's party conference won over a few more of the doubters (Jeff Randall springs to mind).

Things will of course really matter when the election is called. There's no room for serious error then. But what we are repeatedly reminded of is that Labour has a gazillion skeletons in the cupboard, and the Cameroons have the intellect to expose them. The timing and the execution have to be as well planned as today's events, with the Tories' questioning followed up by Eric Pickles' letter.

But the problem of the biased broadcast media will remain an issue.

Chuck Unsworth

@ David Lindsay

Nonsense. What about all the other blogs - and contributors - you've carefully chosen to ignore?

David Lindsay

The same names do pop up rather a lot, Chuck Unsworth. Yours and mine, for example.

Cameron needs to reach on beyond people who are in any position to watch television at the middle point of the working week. But he won't.

General Zod

Don't worry about David Lindsay. He doesn't complain about PMQs when Brown is not on the ropes.

Watt Tyler

If you think a certain way, then I am sure that the prospect you see is a slave to a performance at PMQs or a poll. I see the usual suspects vindicating that idea. I prefer to maintain that my cause will win because it is for the best principles. Here is one: the only power a voter has is to vote for the candidate that best represents him. I also see the usual suspects pinning their hopes on a secret plan to be revealed only after their vote has been cashed in and spent, theoretically, in any other way than what was promised (because nothing was promised). As I wrote before, the only power a voter has is to vote for the candidate that best represents him, and to know this, one must know what the candidate is promising.

Gawain

I hope this is a turning point. It should be and we should also be willing to speak the unpalatable truth. Blair's recklessness and failure to prepare combined with Brown's miserly failure to fund our forces led this country (but not our armed forces) to a humiliating defeat in Basra. The Labour Government ordered our troops to run away and left the Iraqi government and the Americans to sort out the mess.

Gordon Brown bears a deep, personal responsibility for this defeat and the consequences. As a primary function of the government of any nation is to defend it and to fight its wars this makes him unfit to be Prime Minister.

Vulture

I'm tempted to make a self-denying ordnance and vow never to criticise Dave before the GE. Trevor's Den is right: anything - even a Green Party Govt. - is preferable to five more years of Govt. by crookery, chicanery, malice and sheer lunacy such as we have suffered since 1997, and in acute form since 2007. Bruin's stinking yellow pelt should be nailed to the barn door and left for the crows to peck at.

Stronghold Barricades

I'm tempted to say "one swallow doesn't make a summer"

It was a good performance yesterday, but with the all the mess created by the last 13 years of Labour welfare gerrimandering, PC enforced laws and red tape strangulation of business the goal should be wide open every week

It was also noticeable that the Tory benches seemed to be upholding the Labour tradition of planted questions by doing many of their own which kept the debate on a theme. It ensured that Brown was always uncomfortable

Now chilcot simply has to ask where the money went that he put into the MoD

Wily Trout

Can I just point out that right now no election has been called? Everyone is criticising the Tories' election campaigning. They aren't on it yet.

Daphne Millar

You people don't understand that Cameron is just walking into a swamp with this one. Most people opposed Iraq before it happened; almost everyone now sees it was a mistake. If the worst thing you can find to say about Gordon Brown is that he wasn't keen spending huge amounts of money on it, things are desperate.
All these defence chief who whinge about not having basic equipment would have been better employed finding the money for it from the grotesquely bloated budget for prestige projects like the F35.

Amy

I was there on wednesday and the atmosphere within the house was electric, the Tories finally felt like they were ready for an election campaign

Chuck Unsworth

@ David Lindsay

Your position is demonstrably untenable. What about all those readers who do not contribute - or write?

Sevo

Yes, it was a better Cameron performance than usual. But McBroon's habitual evasion of the question has now degraded into a blatant and total ignoring of the question, again and again. He does not even make an attempt to address the point raised, merely resorting to name-calling in the guise of a response.

This is democratically unacceptable and the Tories as well as the LibDems need to call him on it (no point hoping that the Speaker would do this from time to time). The whole point of PMQs is, fundamentally, to hold the Goverment to account, and if the PM refuses to respect this function of the exercise, he is in effect putting up two fingers to the whole institution of Parliament and Parliamentary procedure. It should not be allowed to stand.

Rhys

Define "irony": 16:16 Brown attacks Conservatives for supporting no referendum lol