David Heath: the man who made Gordon Brown laugh

When you're feeling the pressure, maybe if your work colleagues are winding you up, for example, it can be really great if someone unexpected comes along and just makes you laugh, even if they're having a go. After all, whoever said laughter was the best medicine had a point.

That's what it was like for notoroiusly dour Prime Minister Gordon Brown today. For a man who was again having to dodge the slings and arrows of outraged Blairites, he managed to land a few punches on David Cameron at PMQs but it was an uninspiring display from both men.

Nick Clegg upped the quality a bit with a clever question on taxes - asking how the PM could go on about aspiration when the 20% poorest people paid proportionally more in tax than the 20% richest.

The star of the show, though, was David Heath, Lib Dem MP for Somerton and Frome and a long time hero of mine. Asking about Labour's lack of progress on Commons reform, with characteristic wit and with enough passion to melt all the snow in the land, he said that the Labour Government had all the speed of an "arthritic slug on the way to its own funeral." Now, let's not be pedantic and start lecturing on slug anatomy, it was a very funny line and Brown was still laughing as he replied to David that the cross party consensus was useful. It was the sort of exchange we don't see enough of - witty, spontaneous and effective.

I think it was definitely the best line at PMQs since the Almighty Vince's "Stalin to Mr Bean."

It certainly brought a bit of levity to the PM's day before he had to go and deal with the Hoon and Hewitt letter. Geoff Hoon, of course, is facing a very strong Liberal Democrat challenge in his seat, so it's hardly surprising he's turning to desperate measures.

I may be proved wrong this time next week, but I doubt anybody will want to try to take on the job of leading Labour into a very risky election so I think this will go down as yet another attempt by Blairites to undermine Gordon Brown and just fizzle out.

David Mundell's Banknotes Bill - couldn't he think of anything better?

It seems to be Davids who have done best out of the Private Members Bill ballot this year. Last week I wrote about how Lib Dem David Heath is introducing a Bill to reduce fuel poverty .

Today, Scottish Tory MP for Dumfries, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, David Mundell, announced that he was going to use this magnificent opportunity to improve the quality of people's lives to introduce a bill to compel English retailers to accept Scottish banknotes.

We've all been there, in some florist, or at a newspaper stand south of the border and we hand over a fiver to pay for our purchases and the proprietor screws his nose up and delights in telling us that he (and, let's face it, it usually is a he)can't accept our beautiful Scottish banknotes as only Bank of England notes cut it with him.

When we lived in England, and I know this is nearly a decade ago now, we usually had no problem spending our Scottish notes. We did start to have a problem with £1 notes after they were phased out in England, but most of the time it was fine.

I have no problems with the aims of David Mundell's bill, although I can't really see why the Government can't tag a wee clause onto the bottom of some finance bill if it's really necessary. It's just that it depresses me that this is the height of his ambition.

We are facing the worst economic crisis probably of my lifetime and he's come up with an uncontroversial but basically irrelevant piece of legislation. What about measures to help business, or farmers, or people on fixed incomes who are struggling at the moment as interest rates fall? Were none of the current Tory policies worthy of putting in a Private Members' Bill? Well, obviously I think that, but I didn't expect him to.

This measure is almost like the sort of thing I get annoyed with my husband for. He will think he's been very helpful by cleaning out a drawer that we only ever go into occasionally, but hasn't touched the living room which is looking like a pig sty.

Here's hoping that in the Battle of the Davids, it's the fuel poverty measure, which will make so much difference to people who are struggling at the moment, that prevails.

LibDig This!

Lib Dem to introduce bill to end Fuel Poverty

Hat tip to Lib Dem Voice for the news that David Heath, Lib Dem Brian Blessed look alike and Somerton and Frome MP is to introduce a bill aimed at ending fuel poverty.

This measure, if it becomes law, would introduce two measures which would make a huge difference to those struggling to pay their fuel bills: an energy efficiency programme and statutory social tariffs to reduce the impact of high energy costs for the most vulnerable.

A worthy measure, worthy of parliamentary support. Let's hope the Government backs it so it has a chance of becoming law.

LibDig This!