Prime minister's questions

Sketch
By Nick Assinder
Political Correspondent, BBC News website

Whether the anger ricocheting around the Commons chamber was simulated or not, there was enough of it to power the central heating system in Westminster for the rest of the week.

Anger buzzer around the chamber

In a sign of the sort of electioneering to come, Michael Howard and Tony Blair laid into each other over the NHS in a way not seen for ages.

The prime minister regularly loses his rag, or appears to, during his weekly question time sessions.

Mr Howard seldom does and, as a result, has often been criticised for lacking passion. Not today.

But the NHS is risky territory for the Tories. In the way Labour was once seen as a party incapable of running the economy, the Conservatives have not been viewed as natural protectors of the health service.

Mr Howard is eager to correct that impression and set about the prime minister over the government's record on the NHS.

He chose to do it by highlighting the alleged plight of a pensioner who has had a life-threatening operation postponed seven times, sometimes at the last moment.

Unhappy record

It infuriated the prime minister and led to a most ill-tempered clash, which saw Mr Howard accusing Mr Blair of "simulated anger".

There is an unhappy record of political leaders using individual cases to highlight claimed problems.

Howard highlighted individual case

There was the infamous "Jennifer's ear" row of the 1992 general election and the case of Ruth Addis, highlighted by the then Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith in the last Parliament.

Both rows degenerated into tit for tat allegations which, it was claimed at the time, actually turned voters off and gave neither side any great advantage as they were accused of using individuals as political footballs.

And, in this case, the anger may well have fuelled the heating but it probably would not have driven the lighting system.

Canny tactic

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy took a different approach by asking if the prime minister would accept his proposal to give women automatic rights to full state pensions.

This is a canny tactic because Mr Kennedy is more than a little suspicious that this is one of his party's policies about to be burgled by the Labour party.

So he wanted to remind voters that he had indeed thought of it first.

The prime minister resorted to his now traditional approach to the Lib Dems by demanding to know where the cash would come from.

When Mr Kennedy, who had used up his allocated questions, mouthed "savings" , Mr Blair switched into patronising mode.

"Yeah, well," he said, turning to address his backbenchers with a grin, "I will come back to him on that."

We will, over the coming months (as the prime minister now says when hinting at the looming election) come back to these on many, many occasions.