Brown's bruising battle

Prime minister's questions sketch
By Nick Assinder
Political correspondent, BBC News website

Gordon Brown will hope that is the worst and most bruising question time session he will ever have to suffer.

Mr Cameron challenged Brown to call election

David Cameron, on the other hand, now has to consider how on earth he can possibly follow his performance without resorting to four letter words or throwing bits of furniture across the chamber.

It wasn't so much that Mr Cameron wiped the floor with the prime minister - it fell a little short of that and the great clunking fist landed some pretty effective blows.

But this first question time clash of the new parliamentary season was without doubt the most bitter, personal and riveting since Mr Brown became prime minister - and one of the most high octane for many, many months.

In other words, it was engrossing, entertaining and just a little bit scary - was somebody about to get hurt?

Well, yes. The prime minister was. He knew what was coming, but that probably didn't help any more than knowing of the necessity for extensive root canal work lessens the pain when the dentist has his hand down your throat.

Make way

So, he probably guessed he was about to be branded untrustworthy, a bottler, a phoney and a policy thief.

He put his head down and allowed many of the taunts, even insults, to bounce off.

Mr Brown landed a few blows

But Mr Cameron had some genuinely stinging remarks in his arsenal.

"I tell you what, get some courage, find some bottle, get into your car, go down to Buckingham Palace and call that election," he demanded.

Then, in an echo of his famous taunt to Tony Blair that "you were the future once", he delivered the killer.

"How long are we going to have to wait until the past makes way for the future?"

Torn to shreds

The Tory benches were, by this point, in some sort of ecstatic blue heaven - perhaps St John Ambulance crews should have been placed on standby for those overcome by it all.

Labour MPs were doing their best to match the jeers and cheers and straightforward shrieking but, like the prime minister, they really knew they just had to take it all.

Their man gave them some reasons to cheer - the Tories were a policy shambles and Mr Cameron had been forced to reveal his manifesto which would now be torn to shreds (at least the bits that hadn't been stolen, presumably)

But their greatest relief came when it was all over.

They undoubtedly reassured themselves with the hope that Mr Cameron has now fired all his missiles and will not be able to manage any repeat performances like this.

After all, his early promise against Tony Blair didn't last the distance.

And then, they hope and believe, it will all fade and Gordon Brown can get his project back on course, continue his strategy of denying the Tories any square inch of the centre ground and go on to win that election - eventually.