With Brown dropping from the heights of his bounce, PMQs was a popular topic for many in the blogging community.
As the mainstream media focused on the agitated PM, Patriccus felt Brown did not come out the worst: “I actually thought that he gave the squeaking Ming Campbell a fairly easy ride, considering the fact that it has been the latter’s weak leadership that has led to the haemorrhaging of support from the Lib Dems to the Conservatives. The House of Commons has always needed a resident runt, and that is one job for which Ming seems eminently qualified.”
For Labour councillor Louise Baldcock, none of the interlocutors came out of the debate with any respectability. She described it as: “Extremely unedifying, put me in mind of [a] bear pit. How much of a coincidence is it that all the key players are men?”
At first, Iain Dale was taken by the reaction of the media to the debate. He wrote: “‘Pulverised’ was a word being used by many. I suspect the media relished their chance to kick Brown when he was down, after two weeks of being spun to in the most duplicitous way. Cameron was right when he said that Brown was taking the electorate for fools. But it was the media who felt they were being taken for fools too. And they, at least, had the chance to hit back.”
But Dale later changed his tune, when the debate did not get as much press attention as he would have liked: “A mole who was at yesterday’s editorial meeting at the Mail says that Dacre became extremely angry about criticisms of Brown. How long until the Mail’s owner, Lord Rothermere, decides he’d like David Cameron to get fairer treatment from his paper?”
Chris Paul reacted by suggesting Dale’s mole may not be anonymous for too much longer due to the amount of times it is mentioned on Dale’s blog. Paul also felt there were good reasons for the press to help put the issue to bed: “The Mail and Telegraph do not want to over-state some horrendous Punch and Judy yahhing and booing from the man who said he’d consigned that to history.”
But not all eyes were on the debate on Wednesday afternoon, as Tory MP Nadine Dorries revealed: “I sat behind David Cameron at PMQs today; I was the bright pink jacket. Worn for a specific reason, constituents are always saying to me ‘we never see you at PMQs’. I thought that today I would make sure they noticed me!”
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