Question Time: Real-Time Blogged

The House of Commons is holding Prime Minister's Question Time for the last time in this session of Parliament. If you haven't heard, Parliament has been dissolved and new elections called for May 6. Imagine that. The Brits have to endure less than a month of the campaign season that in the US goes on interminably.

Question Time is a give-and-take between the members of all three parties -- the ruling Labour Party, the Conservatives and the the minor party, the Liberal Democrats -- and the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.  The PM is basically grilled. But he gives as good as he gets. This may be Brown's last Question Time and is also a kind of stage on which he, Conservative's David Cameron and the Lib Dem's Nick Clegg may bark and strut a little as the campaign season begins. QT is usually marked by a kind of faint praise before the blow kind of remark, the kind that is sorely lacking in the US national legislature.

I'll write quickly a summary of what's happening as a kind of rough draft transcript, simply to give the flavor of the event. I'll leave out the "Mr. Speaker" with which every speaker begins, as by the rules of order, the question is directed to the speaker of the house, not the PM or his opposite directly.

It's noon. Gordon Brown has entered and taken his seat in the first row of benches on the Labour side.

Gordon Brown begins with a tribute to two servicemen killed this week in Afghanistan.

And to two firemen who died fighting a high-rise fire in Southhampton.

Labour softball: Will the minister guarantee not taking 6 billion pounds from the economy (referring to a controversial Labour proposal to raise the National Insurance tax, a kind of Social Security tax that funds public services. Conservatives say it will remove money from the economy at a time of recovery).

We can't cut our way to recovery, says Brown.

Cameron: Reiterates the tributes to servicemen. Remember all sacrifices, acknowledge our debt.

Last chance for this PM to show he's accountable for decisions he's made. Were troops sent to Helmand without helicopters and resources they needed?

Brown: Commanding officers always state they've been properly equipped for the job. I take full responsibility but I take the advice of our commanding officers.

Cameron: That answer sums up this PMship, takes no responsibility and blames everyone else!
CO of 3 Para says repeated requests for more choppers fell on deaf ears.

Presumably PM will tell us all these folks were just deceived.

Brown: Should recognize Chinooks and other choppers adapted for use in Afghanistan. 5 million pounds spent in Afghanistan on choppers each year.

Order! Gov't back benchers should calm down!

Cameron: In last 13 years he has robbed pension funds of billions of pounds. Will the PM admit robbing pension funds was the wrong decision for Britain.

Pointing and gesticulating. Heating up now. Here, here!

Brown: We've taken two million pensioners with a pension tax credit and given them dignity in retirement!

Cameron: That's sort of decisions we're going to rebut in the next election! More chatter. Lots more.

Right honorable members are shouting themselves hoarse. We must calm down.

Cameron: Is the PM telling us he knows more about job creation than business leaders?

Brown: Lists accomplishments -- bailouts of banks, small business, homeowners that Conservatives opposed. Talks up National Insurance tax hike, to benefit schools hospitals and schools.

Cameron: Wasting money and putting a tax on every job in country! National Insurance tax will stifle recovery.

So it goes....

Brown: Tory public policy puts public services at risk.

Cameron: Citing reports that Brown says biz leaders been decieved on National Insurance, Labour supporters then but probably Conservatives now. Tax on every business in country would wreck the recovery.

Brown: The same old Conservative party!

Order Order! Members must calm themselves.

Brown: ... More students in schools, more pensioners out of poverty, we have plans for the future, they have nothing, only a Labour government can do it!

Little of civility and polite swipes you sometimes hear.

Clegg: Adds sympathy and condolences.

He and he (Brown and Cameron) are trying to fool people that they're serious about political reform. Yet last week more proof this is not true. Cross party meeting on campaign funding. Why should anyone trust a single word they have to say about political reform.

Order, order! The house must calm down!

Clegg: The two parties are colluding together to block reform. Just like the way they came together to block our proposal to block lobbying. Look at them now Look at then now You failed! It's time to go!

Brown: Liberal and Labour agreed to reform, Conservatives pulled out on advice of Lord Ashcroft!

Another Labour softball on health care. Brown: A guarantee that every patient to see a doctor within 18 weeks. A guarantee to cancer patients to see a specialist in two weeks. The opposite party will not support it. People will see in whose hands the health service is safe.

Hammond (Conservative MP): Does the PM plan to spend the entire campaign visiting safe houses?

OK more selective now.

Brown: Every other country is saying we've got to confirm the recovery, only Conservatives would not (by removing the 6 billion pounds in the proposed National Insurance tax).

More on the helicopters. More helicopters, more helicopter hours in Afghanistan now.

Brown likes to bring up Ashcroft, who wrangled a tax exemption, presumably in return for funding the Conservatives.

Liverpool Independent asks for return to direct, not indirect taxation in order to redistribute wealth to poorest.

Whew! Looks like there's a "10-minute rule" motion, whatever that is, and the House is clearing out save a handful of members. Sorry I'm not familiar with this process. the time out apparently allows the House to (technically) hear a bill read by its sponsor.

You get the idea.