A story proving popular in the New York Times suggests that coconut oil is back in favour with the health food world having once resembled "the devil himself in liquid form, with more poisonous artery-clogging, cholesterol-raising, heart-attack-causing saturated fat than butter, lard or beef tallow".

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in a phonecall to Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, accused parts of the UK media of a "Jewish conspiracy" against his website, says the Guardian.

Seven Canary Wharf workers who were trapped in a lift following a "boozy night out" have had to explain themselves to bosses after e-mails about the incident made their way around the City, according to the Evening Standard.

"The men shouted for help and pressed the emergency button, but were forced to spend about three hours curled up together like dormice... An investigation is under way into whether the lift malfunction was caused by members of the group jumping up and down."

At Wired, news of the latest design by Lamborghini has caught readers' attention. The sports car, which costs a cool $379,000 (£232,000) has been named the Aventador, "for the bull that won the Trofeo de la Peña La Madroñera in 1993 for 'outstanding courage'".

The Daily Mail reports on the story of a French chateau which, at the behest of former owner Louis Mantin, has been closed up since his death in 1905, as a sort of "time capsule". Thanks to a £2.9m refurbishment, the property looks exactly as it would have at the turn of the century:

"On his death its doors remained closed and rats and insects were given free reign within its dusty corridors and vast rooms."

The Wall Street Journal's Iain Martin suggests that whatever the motive behind Mr Blair's decision, it will have been influenced by the public's perception of him:

"The destruction of trust continues to dog Blair and colors views of all that he does."

Michael White in the Guardian agrees, saying that the former PM is well aware of the damage that the war did to his reputation:

"Despite Blair's optimistic nature, cumulatively the attacks must demoralise him, and his police security detail remains high. Did not Robert Harris's thriller, The Ghost, envisage a Blair-like ex-PM holed up on Martha's Vineyard writing his memoirs, facing legal investigation and worse?"

Writing in the Independent Carol Jones, whose son John was killed in Iraq, describes the donation as "blood money":

"I think this donation is because of a very big guilty conscience for the 179 deaths in Iraq."

Con Coughlin in the Telegraph applauds Mr Blair's donation, rejecting the cynical views of others:

"I prefer to take at face value that he has taken this decision as his way of honouring the courage and sacrifice of all those who have fought in Blair's wars."

Alex Massie in the Spectator wonders whether the move will encourage other politicians to be as similarly philanthropic when penning their own autobiographies:

"Not that this will be popular with other politicians who may find themselves pressed to make comparable gestures when it comes to the proceeds - if there be any - of their own memoirs. How about it, Gordon?"

The Daily Mail's leader column has faint praise for the former Labour leader's decision:

"Whatever may have driven him to it, however, one truth is inescapable: for once in his lying, war-mongering, money grubbing career, the former prime minister has done something decent."

The Independent's Andrew Grice says that on many of the big issues - such as cutting the deficit, climate change and Europe - the Lib Dems have far more in common with Labour than they do with the Tories:

"Even if the Lib-Con negotiators reach a deal, MPs in both parties fear trouble ahead. A significant number of Tory MPs will not feel comfortable with getting into bed with the Liberal Democrats and the feeling is mutual."

In the Times William Rees-Mogg, who was editor of the paper at the time of the hung Parliament in 1974, notes a significant similarity between the talks that took place then between Edward Heath and Jeremy Thorpe and those now between David Cameron and Nick Clegg:

"The party leaders can reach a deal with each other with relative ease, but they are limited by the reluctance of their own supporters, now and in 1974. And this internal opposition will always include MPs as well as party activists."

The Telegraph's Benedict Brogan agrees, saying that David Cameron is prepared to go further than many in his party would like in order to gain power:

"Officially, there has been no offer so far on electoral reform but he also wants certainty that his Lib Dem allies will vote with him in the Commons when it matters.
 
"He wants to bind them in to the hard decisions ahead. To that end he is prepared to go much further than his party perhaps realises."

Julian Glover in the Guardian reckons that for the Lib Dems to refuse to do a deal with the Tories would simply confirm a fact about the British political system that they have long criticised:

"A prissy standoffishness would consign them to irrelevance and confirm the very fact that they hoped this election would prove wrong: Britain still cannot escape its old political tribes."

Alex Stevenson at politics.co.uk warns the Tories and Lib Dems to manage the public perceptions of any talks to avoid uncertainty in the markets:

"If the current talks collapse there will be a price to pay on the markets, with all parties seeking to blame another. With the prospect of another election within 12 months now a very real possibility there really is all to play for."

Jon Snow at Channel 4 News says that the most likely scenario is a deal between Tories and Lib Dems where Nick Clegg's MPs will only support the Budget and Queen's Speech.

In the Mail, Melanie Philips argues that for the Tories to be taken seriously in future, the party needs to go it alone as a minority government:

"[C]oalitions mean backstairs deals which are not transparent at all. They mean weak governments held to ransom by tiny political parties."

• Andrew Grice | Independent | Lib Dems must talk to Tories
• William Rees-Mogg | Times | Leaders want a deal. Their followers may not
• Benedict Brogan | Telegraph | Cameron's PR coup to wrong-foot Labour
• Julian Glover | Guardian | The onus is on Lib Dems
• Alex Stevenson | Politics.co.uk | Uncharted waters for British politics
• Jon Snow | Channel 4 News | A pig flying down Whitehall?
• Melanie Phillips | Mail | Forget these shabby back-room deals
• BBC | Bloggers' review on the hung Parliament

"What a big yellow sunflower Cleggy has become, rotating to the nearest bank of television crews."

The Guardian's Simon Hoggart says that the PM went all out when he spoke to nurses at their conference in Bournemouth:

"The nurses Gordon Brown was addressing must have felt as if they were being hosed down with maple syrup. And added treacle."

For the Independent, Simon Carr pays a visit to Somerton and Frome, the constituency where the Conservative candidate is Annunziata Rees-Mogg:

"The Tory candidate has a name that is visible from space."

Mr Carr was also at the Respect party's launch where he notes that George Galloway had little need for an amplifier to get his message across:

"What a voice he has, George Galloway. He's the Pavarotti of politics."

Simon Hoggart says that despite their best intentions, the assembled Oxford Brookes students who'd come to listen to Nick Clegg on Wednesday couldn't help but lose their initial enthusiam:

"He has a terrific gift for sedating people. If you were bitten by a snake and had to lie still until the serum arrived, he could save your life by telling you his thoughts on banking regulation."

Alex Stevenson, writing for Politics.co.uk, hazards a guess as to why Tory leader David Cameron was talking at such a pace when he met workers at a Coca-Cola factory in Wakefield:

"Cameron was speaking much faster than usual. Was he on a sugar high after falling into a giant vat of Coke? His claims were certainly getting more and more far-fetched."

Ahead of the third and final prime-ministerial TV debate the Times' Ann Treneman predicts what Mr Brown would not be mentioning:

"The man has had so many accidents he should be in A & E. The one thing I was sure he wasn't going to say was: 'I met this woman in Rochdale yesterday ...'"

"If I'm kind, I would say that it looked like a shampoo commercial; others might judge that it seemed more like an advert for Dignitas."

The Guardian's Simon Hoggart notices that Mr Brown is a man of many smiles:

"Brown sat next to his wife. He smiled at her. It was a quite normal smile. Clearly he has one for family, and another for best - the one that resembles a vampire who has just seen dawn breaking."

At the Tories' manifesto launch, the Mail's Quentin Letts is intrigued by the hairstyles:

"There was a lot of public-school hair on display - young men who needed a trip to the barber - and toothpastey optimism. Pretty youths mingled alongside Shadow Cabinet members. Sir George Young, Bart., looked a bit baffled, his few strands of hair untidy like a pineapple's top-knot."

The Telegraph's Andrew Gimson says that David Cameron's manifesto "invitation" to the electorate is evidence that times have changed:

"In the old days, an invitation might consist of a stiff card bearing the words 'At Home', but nowadays it is the done thing to send out a hardback book of 118 pages."

But Simon Hoggart didn't think that the occasion itself lived up to much:

"[T]here is something about the Tories. They just don't do excitement. The audience - media on one side, party members on the other - were up for inspiration. What they got was the shadow cabinet."

Ann Treneman was unimpressed by the Lib Dems' choice of venue for their manifesto launch:

"If I were to be kind, I would say this event was at the cutting edge of austerity chic and that it had a sort of Quaker-like simplicity. But actually it was just flat. No razzmatazz, no music, no sense of excitement, just a few MPs sitting at the front of the aquarium, looking doleful, with bubbles coming out of their mouths."

Simon Hoggart warns that there is a danger of Vince Cable's role being confused:

"He is playing the role of wife to Nick Clegg, since he is his constant companion, and like Sam and Sarah more popular than the chap they're with."

As Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg took to the floor for the first prime ministerial TV debate, Andrew Gimson admits to being exhausted by the whole experience:

"Each man had been stuffed full of telling lines and was bursting to deliver as many as possible of them in the allotted time. Just to watch them straining every sinew to do each other down was getting a bit fatiguing. There is a reason why Prime Minister's Questions lasts only half an hour, and boxing matches do not go on for ever."

Quentin Letts commends the actual event, if not those taking part:

"Maybe Gordon Brown was a bit of a copy-cat, repeatedly grunting 'absolutely'. Maybe David Cameron's face was a bit too John West salmon a colour. Maybe that Clegg man gassed on too much, wiggling his head as though he was a breakdancer.
"But the whole thing was zestier than US presidential debates. Better TV."

Simon Carr describes how, towards the end of the debate, spin doctors were let loose on the journalists who were present in Manchester:

"There was a slight sense of sulphur in the air in the Manchester media room; surely the Iceland volcano couldn't have got here so quickly? No, it was Peter Mandelson gliding into the hall."

The debate was dominated by the prime minister's admission that he had made a mistake in his evidence to the Iraq inquiry and the BA/Unite dispute.

The Guardian's Simon Hoggart likens the PM's revulsion at having to 'fess up to the way "a small child eats gristly beef - with great difficulty and with much resentment":

""When he does get it wrong, he has to find a way of saying that it wasn't really wrong wrong, more sort of right wrong."

In the Times Ann Treneman agrees, noting that an admittance of any kind of error from the prime minister is a rare event indeed:

"Until yesterday any Gordo retractions at PMQs were, like the dodo, mythical. So this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, like a double rainbow and Halley's Comet rolled into one. He looked miserable."

The Mail's Quentin Letts is surprised by Mr Brown's somewhat subdued mood so close to the general election:

"Had he been a specimen at Crufts you would have concluded that this sausage dog had a dry nose.
 
"Just a couple of weeks ago the lava flowed from Mr Brown, red and molten. Yesterday he was no more volcanic than a mole hill."

Simon Carr in the Independent notes that John Bercow's chosen style as Speaker has thrown up the issue of who calls time on his own increasingly lengthy interventions:

"His interventions have become comically long. His statement yesterday made a three-course meal out of a cupcake."

Links in full

Simon Hoggart | Guardian | Wrong wrongs? Right wrongs? It all felt wrong
Ann Treneman | Times | Brown exposed as union ties elicit mythical retraction
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | Shades of a child drinking cod liver oil
Simon Carr | Independent | Bercow must play his cards right

Democracy Live | Prime Minister's Questions

Children, Schools and Families Secretary Ed Balls and his opposite number, Michael Gove took to the floor in a debate that touched on free school meals, Eton, future spending cuts and Carol Vorderman.

According to Simon Hoggart in the Guardian, not only was the debate about schoolchildren but the behaviour of the two main players resembled that of a pair of adolescents:

"As the questions were on schools, it was entirely appropriate that what we got was a playground fight, with the Speaker as the poor sod in charge of supervising break, who actually couldn't care less about the rights and wrongs of their scrap, or voices chirping: 'Sir, sir, he started it, sir!'"

In the Times Ann Treneman agrees, saying that the cabinet minister and his learned shadow opponent had the "maturity of toddlers fighting over a toy truck":

"'You keep refusing to listen!' moaned Mr Balls (are they married? I think we should be told). Then he announced: 'I think he should do his homework a little bit better.'
 
"At which point Mr Gove snapped: 'I think it is you who will get an F for fail on this!'"

The Mail's Quentin Letts says that the session was in sharp contrast with that which went before it - as Justice Secretary Jack Straw discussed the case of Jon Venables with his fellow lawyers, Tory Dominic Grieve and Lib Dem David Howarth in a non-political-point-scoring way:

"At one point he had to be asked by the Speaker to withdraw a silly allegation that his shadow, Michael Gove, was lying. Mr Balls did so in such a sullen way that the Tory benches immediately barked: 'Hah!'
 
"Mr Balls: 'It sounds like they've had a large lunch and that was a large belch.'
 
"Ew."

Simon Carr in the Independent admits to being totally confused by the whole debate:

"They were, he and Michael Gove, each accusing the other of quoting misleading figures. We were all misled. But, as I have come to realise, it is what we are for."

Links in full

Simon Hoggart | Guardian | Speaker blows his whistle on playground fight
Ann Treneman | Times | Balls and Gove end up on naughty step
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | Straw did his 'open sort of guy' routine
Simon Carr | Independent | Who's telling the truth? I have no idea

Harriet Harman and William Hague took centre stage for proceedings as the prime minister was meeting South African President Jacob Zuma.

The shadow foreign secretary chose to kick off his set of questions with one on government bonds, a tactic that Lloyd Evans in the Spectator says was a sure-fire way to get the leader of the house in a flurry:

"Finance gets Hattie in a terrible twist. She sounds like a four-year-old explaining space travel to a pretend friend. Jargon and overheard half-concepts are mashed together in a confidently asserted jumble of bilge."

For her part, Ms Harman made sure to bring up the subject of Lord Ashcroft at every opportunity, an approach that Ann Treneman in the Times says increased her confidence against her opponent:

"Harriet Harman saw it as her Boadicea moment. To say that she was on her high horse does not quite capture it - think of the artist Mark Wallinger's plans for a 50-metre white horse in the Thames Estuary and you get the idea."

But, as Ms Harman thought she had the better of her opponent, going for the jugular on the issue of the Tory deputy leader's own integrity regarding the Tory donor, the Independent's Simon Carr reckons that Mr Hague's mention of her husband's selection as a Labour candidate won the round:

"[I]t's often the way - it's not the big punch that wins but the counterpunch."

It was a particularly raucous PMQs with constant barracking from all sides throughout, regardless of who was speaking. Ian Dunt at Politics.co.uk likens the behaviour of the government backbenchers at one point to "a party of eight-year-old boys given Modern Warfare 2", describing Speaker John Bercow's role in proceedings as "resembling a PE teacher as he begged for order".

Links in full

Lloyd Evans | Spectator | Harman never misses chance to go on offensive
Ann Treneman | Times | The Harman and Hague show comes to town
Simon Carr | Independent | Hague floors Harman in Commons clash
Ian Dunt | Politics.co.uk | Harman becomes the opposition

Democracy Live | Prime Minister's Questions

Lord Turner appeared in front of the Treasury Select Committee to discuss how banks and bankers can be controlled in future to prevent another financial crisis. The Independent's Simon Carr seems unconvinced, or simply confused, by the Financial Service Authority chief's answers:

"Lord Turner had a number of solutions. The ones any normal ignoramus could understand were silly, and so I assumed - perhaps unfairly - were the ones we couldn't.
 
"To stop a boom while it was still booming he was recommending a 'macroprudential committee' on which he had placed 'maverick economists' in order to 'institutionalise intellectual challenge'. That's like sending missionaries into the Big Feast armed only with the New Testament printed on sugar paper."

At Foreign Office questions, as the debate turned to the issue of Yemen, Labour MP Keith Vaz asked David Miliband if he would consider visiting the country with his US counterpart Hillary Clinton. Simon Hoggart in the Guardian notes that, instead of being embarrassed by the insinuations about the pair's relationship after Mrs Clinton called Mr Miliband "vibrant and attractive", he positively played on it:

"You might think Mr Miliband would try to shrug off this erotic speculation and give a serious answer. Not. 'Needless to say,' he purred, 'I have thought of many places for a joint visit with the secretary of state...'"

Away from Westminster, Kenneth Clarke was speaking at an event in Canary Wharf, home to many of the City's bankers. In the Daily Mail Quentin Letts says that if the Tories' plan was to present him as an experienced antidote to Cameron and Osborne, who were also there, it did the trick:

"Mr Osborne was so pale he was almost green. Mr Cameron's hair glistened."
 
"[Mr Clarke's] own hair cut, scraped and pineapple spiky at the back, was old-fashioned. He was a disorganised figure, even almost doddery as he stumbled over words, his enunciation foggy, the vowels moving towards us with all the despatch of smoke rings."

Links in full

Simon Carr | Independent | Banking cannibals are likely to gorge again
Simon Hoggart | Guardian | A jug of zchug, and the attractions of Yemen
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | Clarke growled like a Jensen Interceptor

The Commons science committee was grilling two witnesses from polar opposites of the climate change debate. First up was former chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby, a longstanding critic of the climate policy. Then it was the turn of Professor Phil Jones, the scientist from the University of East Anglia who was at the centre of the leaked e-mails controversy.

The Guardian's Simon Hoggart notes that the former chancellor's many years' experience as a politician were apparent in the way he handled the committee's questions:

"With the aggression of someone who used to go eyeball to eyeball with Margaret Thatcher, Lawson laid about the 'climate alarmists' and, without naming Jones, spoke with dripping contempt."

The Daily Mail's Quentin Letts says that Professor Jones's demeanour was reminiscent of Dr David Kelly in front of the foreign affairs select committee several years ago:

"His voice quavered, hands shook, eyes darted as though he was watching a video of Wimbledon on fast-forward."

However, in the Times Ann Treneman disagrees that the scientist seemed uneasy, describing him as "eerily calm":

"He seemed, like a dead calm sea, almost glassy. And, like ships in the Bermuda Triangle, questions that got near him just seemed to disappear."

Simon Carr in the Independent reckons that the committee was out to get Professor
Jones:

"They may be looking for a blood sacrifice. If I were Dr Jones, I'd get the details of a transfusion service."

Links in full

Simon Hoggart | Guardian | Another scientist being skewered makes for painful viewing
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | Lord Lawson labelled them climate alarmists
Ann Treneman | Times | Climate scientists know how to stay calm
Simon Carr | Independent | Scientist may find himself a convenient sacrificial lamb

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne was in front of the Public Administration Committee, answering questions on public spending.

In the Daily Mail Quentin Letts notes that Mr Darling's right-hand minister was reluctant - to the point of appearing "queasy" - to mention the word "cuts":

"He sat there between two Treasury aides, small, very white, like a golf ball in a carpenter's vice. He was a maestro of mumbled waffle. Here was the Chief Secretary of the Treasury, the man we look to as the protector of our tax money, pooh-poohing the idea of cuts."

"He's got an attractive laugh, has Liam Byrne, but he used it too often, sounding like a desperate husband trying to make light of his infidelities."

In the Times Ann Treneman, reporting on a Commons discussion in which Harriet Harman claimed that her Twitter account had been hacked into, suggests that Ms Harman does not come across as an avid tweeter:

"Harriet does not tweet so much as plod. It would be like communicating with treacle."

In the House of Lords, the Guardian's Simon Hoggart remarks on the ease with which peers' debates move from one subject to another which is totally unrelated to the Parliamentary business in hand:

"Whatever serious topic they are supposed to be discussing, they usually wander off down some side road. It's like chatting to a friend in a tearoom while waiting for the rain to stop: pleasant, agreeable, and you can chew over anything that pops into your head."

Similarly, Andrew Gimon in the Telegraph comments on the difference in the way that peers talk to each other compared to MPs down the corridor. He gives the example of Lord Mandelson's apology to former education secretary Lord Baker that he could not be present for a debate on university funding as he had "essential departmental business".

"Lord Mandelson knows peers know he is presenting them with a convenient fiction, which is why he makes the whole thing far more enjoyably preposterous by pretending that wild horses would not keep him away. Instead of getting cross with Lord Mandelson, we are grateful to him for amusing us."

Links in full

Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | Bald Mr Byrne was like a golf ball in a vice
Simon Carr | Independent | Service cuts? You're joking
Ann Treneman | Times | Harriet Harman all atwitter over fake tweet
Simon Hoggart | Guardian | Lords keep a sense of proportion
Andrew Gimson | Telegraph | Mandelson behaves like Algernon

The week began with the prime minister accused of being a bully. Then the chancellor claimed that those in No 10 had released the "forces of hell" on him after an interview in which he made unfavourable comments about the economy. So when the two men entered the chamber of the House of Commons, all eyes were on the duo, with little attention paid to what was actually said by anyone else.

In the Times Ann Treneman says that the behaviour of the two men sitting so tightly side by side made her fear for a "'get a room' moment":

"Al was wiggling his singed brows at Gordon as they sat, legs touching, giggling. It seemed incredible but it seemed they were on the brink of having a cuddle on the front bench."

The Daily Mail's Quentin Letts congratulates the pair on what he considers a very well-orchestrated appearance of a united front:

"Had the scenario been devised by media fixer Max Clifford, Mr Brown would have rubbed suncream into Mr Darling's shoulders and Mr Darling would have sucked on the straw sticking out of Gordon's pina colada."

Simon Hoggart in the Guardian reckons that the PM had made a concerted effort to come to PMQs to shake off any of the recent alleged slurs on his character:

"It was clearly vital for the prime minister to depict himself as a mild-mannered, considerate fellow who would no more manhandle a secretary or unleash the inferno on a colleague than he would take his clothes off, cover himself with woad, and do a sword dance on the frontbench."

In contrast, the Independent's Simon Carr imagines the scene at No 10 before Gordon Brown headed up the road to the Commons:

"It's calm. I'm going to do, I can ****ing do calm, I'll go in with, I'll walk in with, I'll go straight **** in with **** Darling and we'll smile and ****ing chat. Get the ****ing ****cellor on the phone and tell the **** we'll walk in like together like we were, I don't know what's the word, I SAID WHAT'S THE ****ING WORD! Friends! Why do I have to know EVERY****ING round here? FRIENDS! We'll walk in like we were FRIENDS! Whatever his ****ing stupid Alistair name is we'll be FRIENDS in front of those dis****gusting Tory ****s and that toff-**** will say - I know very well what he'll say because thanks to you ****s it's ALL OVER THE MEDIA ****s!"

Links in full

Ann Treneman | Times | To Hell and back for the happy couple
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | They must have smelt the lingering tang of each other's shaving foam
Simon Hoggart | Guardian | Kiss and make up, Darling
Simon Carr | Independent | Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me

Democracy Live | BBC | Prime Minister's Questions

Appearing in front of the Treasury Select Committee, Mervyn King said that the UK economy has continued to "bump along the bottom".

The Times' Ann Treneman says that he gave spectators very little to feel cheerful about:

"The fact that he looks as if he should be jolly makes the gnomic reality all the more unnerving. Forget 'ho, ho, ho', for Merv it is all 'no, no, no'."

In describing Mr King's one bit of consolatory news that the UK's in a better position than the likes of Greece, Simon Hoggart in the Guardian likens him to a character of AA Milne's:

"He announced all this in morose fashion, reminiscent of Eeyore on his birthday: 'Look at all the presents I've had,' waving his tail at nothing."

Elsewhere MPs were debating an investigation, brought about by Labour MP Andrew Dismore, into the matter of Trevor Phillips being accused of contacting members of a select committee that was reporting on the Equalities Commission. Simon Carr in the Independent is appalled that this is taking up Parliamentary time:

"What shrinking, shivering, cringeing, flinching, intimidated nitwits we have in the House."

Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail reckons that Mr Dismore might almost have got away with his attack on Mr Phillips were it not for fellow committee member and Labour MP Fiona Mactaggart:

"She is as combustible as a Ford tractor engine, and no less noisy. She honked to terrific effect about what she saw as 'a show trial' of Mr Phillips."

Links in full

Ann Treneman | Times | Mervyn, King of gloom, gives us more reason not to be cheerful
Simon Hoggart | Guardian | Some glimmers of hope
Simon Carr | Independent | Intimidated nitwits who are beyond contempt
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | Upstood this glimmering amphibian

David Cameron tackled Gordon Brown on government plans for elderly care and Nick Clegg asked about compensation for injured soldiers returning from Afghanistan.

Ann Treneman in the Times describes the scene in the Commons as "beyond Punch and Judy, more Punch and Punch and Punch again" as David Cameron asked the PM again and again about elderly-care plans:

"You'd think that the subject of social care for the elderly would make everyone sober up but it didn't. It was like watching a brawl in an old people's home -- unedifying, baffling and rather embarrassing."

Politics.co.uk's Ian Dunt agrees that it was a rowdy occasion:

"Behind the Tory leader, his backbenchers were in a sort of Bacchic fury, shuddering with unpleasant rage at Brown's patent inability to answer the question. They pointed, they screamed, they rocked back and forth, clearly indignant."

The Independent's Simon Carr notes that the PM fell back on the familiar approach of repeatedly telling the opposition leader that he had "no policy, no substance" even though David Cameron was asking about policy:

"Brown looked a bit silly, refusing to discuss the policy while demanding a policy discussion."

Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail says that Gordon Brown's tactics are those of a gambler who knows the odds are sky-high but reckons it's still worth a punt:

"Promise the world. There is little chance of having to see them through. On the off-chance that you DO win the election, heck, something will turn up."

Links in full

Ann Treneman | Times | Parliamentary panto ends with Maywatch
Ian Dunt | Politics.co.uk | Brown stumbles, Cameron contradicts
Simon Carr | Independent | Will Cameron be able to deal with all this?
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | Eyebrows raised, a worldly smile

Democracy Live | Prime Minister's Questions

MPs were debating whether to hold a referendum on replacing the electoral first-past-the-post system with that of the alternative vote.

Ann Treneman in the Times says the subject matter "seemed to drive MPs to the brink of metaphor madness. The Tories, in particular, seemed almost high on hyperbole."

The Guardian's Simon Hoggart agrees, calling certain members of the opposition, including those with memorable expense claims, "bonkers":

"The Tories began to out-bonkers each other. Mr Gummer (moles and jackdaws removed) said the bill was 'redolent of the smell at the heart of this government, and the stench of a prime minister who puts his own future before the country'. Patrick Cormack (nothing much, really) said the Labour party was 'like a rotting mackerel by moonlight - it stinks!'"

In the Independent Simon Carr reflects on how best to describe the Speaker's style, quoting some of Mr Bercow's comments at Justice Questions:

"'I'm glad to see the House in such a good mood!'
 
"And, 'I'm sure the House is grateful for the courtesy of such full ministerial replies but in view of the number of members trying to catch my eye I think we would be better served by the abridged version rather than the full War and Peace.'
 
"Charming? Amiable? Game-show compere? You decide."

Elsewhere, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth and Lieutenant General, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff Simon Mayall were giving evidence to the defence select committee. Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail ponders the former's choice of phrase in addressing the latter:

"Mr Ainsworth kept referring to him as 'General Simon'. The General-would have surely been within his rights to refer to the minister as 'Secretary Bob' but naturally did nothing of the sort. Smooth, posh manner. Buttery as a crumpet."

Links in full

Ann Treneman | Times | The winds of change ruffle feathers in the chamber
Simon Hoggart | Guardian | Westminster is alive - with the rancid reek of cynical self-interest
Simon Carr | Independent | Plaid Cymru's fearsome threesome pack quite a punch
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | Smooth posh manner. Buttery like a crumpet