One wonders whether Brown’s cheesy grins are in direct proportion to the desperation he feels!

I have never seen him try to smile so much!!

 There is this continual clash between Brown and Cameron with the PM insisting that Cameron announces Conservative policies for the UK;  as though the leader of the opposition is in a position to implement their policies!

Brown appears to believe that he can pursuade people that Cameron's silence means that he has no policies. But most people would acknowledge that the Conservative policies, of which I am sure they would have spent a lot of time on, are not relevant simply because the Conservatives are not in power yet.

Invoking a discussion about the Conservatives policies during PMQs would take the pressure off Brown and the disasterous state of the UK economy.

So Cameron is right to stay quiet and keep the focus on Brown and the collapse of the UK economy after 12 years of New Labour.

The Prime Minister told MPs during PMQs that he has no intention of quitting. He said that he intended to get on with the job of fixing the expenses scandal, and to get the country out of recession.

However Mr 'Fixit' does not seem to accept any responsibility of being in charge of the country whilst these problems actually occurred!

It could be said that the Labour government actually brought in changes to the expenses rules that have subsequently caused such problems! Even if he can claim that it was not his fault, he is in charge and his government did not understand the potential problems with the procedures in place.

The same for the recession. Brown goes on and on about how he can get the UK out of recession. But Brown should not have allowed it to go into recession in the first place! Even if the UK has been caught up in a global recession, we appear to extremely badly placed to cope with it. The UK can only spend money by borrowing it and of course we will have new and increased taxes over the next 20 years paying it all back!

Why cannot we have a Prime Minister who understands what is going on in the UK and the global financial systems, and is able to correct potential problems in advance of having a national crisis which has resulted in so harm to so many people.

I don't want a Prime Minister who only seems able to react to problems once they have occurred.
And, in most cases,  I don't believe that the people get things wrong in the first place are the people who should then sort it out. If they couldn't get it right to start with then why should they be trusted to get it right once it had gone wrong! 

They certainly shouldn't get any credit for not getting it right in the first place!

Now might be the last time that I can remind Gordon Brown about the action he still needs to take over the 'excessive' pension of  Sir Fred Goodwin, the retiring RBS chairman.

Gordon  Brown was very upset about this 'payment for failure'.

Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader, described the pension settlement - agreed by the RBS board - as "money for nothing".  She said 'the former Royal Bank of Scotland  chief Sir Fred Goodwin should not "count on" keeping his full £650,000 a year pension.'

She could not have been more clear when she said 'The sum was unacceptable in "the court of public opinion," and the government "would step in".

Ms Harman declined to say how the government would achieve this but made it clear it would not tolerate the award as it stands.

"The prime minister has said that it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted," she added.

Even in political double-speak this intervention by the Labour government was unprecedented. They echoed the feelings of many people in the UK.

There may not be very much time left for Gordon Brown to actually fulfil his promise, (and I would certainly call it a promise) to the people of the UK. However my personal view is that Labour were just trying to look as though they empathised with the UK voters and did not intend to do anything. 

To be kind to Brown, perhaps he did not understand that he was powerless to act when he promised that Sir Fred would not keep the pension!

It could also be argued that Brown misunderstood the feelings of the majority of people in the UK over this matter. I think that most people were genuinely upset by the size of the payoff for what was seen as failure.

These feelings boiled over in the issue over MPs expenses. Brown had promised that he would deal with this pension payment  that upset so many people. He failed to do so and the public got their own back when the MPs were seen to be getting too much money for what was also seen as failure - the recession!

The UK economy was already in a bad way when the recession started. It was caused by a worldwide recession caused by failures of many governments to regulate the financial industries properly.

Brown was in charge as chancellor and then prime minister and was responsible for ensuring that the financial regulation was done properly in the UK.  He doesn't seem to like accepting responsibility for his actions if it might cause him to look bad, but he was in charge. It was his responsibility and he failed!

Gordon Brown and New Labour have been in control of the UK for a long time. They cannot blame anyone else for the parlous state of the UK economy.

It is a bit rich for Brown to accuse Cameron of planning to cut services when so much of the  money spent on them was borrowed in the first place!

The next government has to pay back these debts. The cupboard is bare. We don't have the money to repay the debts let alone find the  money for  new services, schools and hospitals etc.

Whoever wins the next election will have to reign back on spending and increase taxes to pay back the debts that New Labour have accumulated during their time in power.

Brown has borrowed billions to get us out of the recession (that he is arguably responsible for!) . We now have to pay that money back from our taxes (don't forget that we have to pay back the interest as well!)

It is obvious that something has to change in the way that the economy is being run. The UK cannot keep borrowing money!

We are going to have to have increased taxes just to repay the existing debt. That is unavoidable and it will take many years of high taxes to clear these debts.

So where will the money come from to maintain the cost of the public services (including the NHS) ? No government, including New Labour, can carry on spending money that they don't have.

When I hear Brown attacking Cameron with accusations that the Conservatives will cut spending on public services, then I do wonder how desperate he is to cling onto power!

Can Brown really keep people from realising  that the UK is saddled with so much debt that  that it is too poor to keep spending money?
Can Brown really make enough people in the UK be more scared of what Cameron might do, than New Labour and Brown have already done to the UK economy?

How happy are people going to be with New Labour  if they have to pay extra taxes and suffer reduced services for many years just to clear the debts incurred by Gordon Brown and New Labour?

And it is not inconceivable that Labour will again end up having to seek help from the International Monetary Fund as it did in 1976.

Well, Gordon Brown has kept his promise for openness and clarity on MPs expense. As he promised the MPs expenses are now online. But he has done it in a way that doesn't really match the promise of 'openness'.

Would the expenses have been put online if the expenses had not been leaked and published in the press already?

I think not. And my view is supported by the fact that there is this disclaimer on the website

The scans have been edited to remove information which could cause serious security issues and breach the privacy of the MP, their staff and other third parties.

This 'editing' would seem to stop people knowing some of the more important 'abuses' such as home flipping and second home expenses. Why? Because all addresses are blacked out and there seems to be no distinction of which properties the expenses refer to.

So Gordon Brown has kept his promise, but he has done it in such a way that the promised 'openess' has not occurred!  Back to the newspapers to see what has really happened!

Brown could have arranged for the phrases 'home 1' or 'home 2' to replace the addresses in order to present the expense details properly, but he didn't!

Almost no MPs have actually done anything outside of the rules of the system introduced by this government.  It is just that the system is so out of order when one considers what most of the population of the country has to cope with.

And don't forget that this whole system of MPs expenses is the responsibility of this government and this Prime Minister (because he is in charge!).

The NHS is likely to become a major battle ground in the forthcoming election. For a start it is possibly the area that affects more people in the UK than any other.

The PM has said that the NHS will not suffer from monetary cuts. This could only be true if the extra money is taken from other spending requirements or the UK debt levels are increased.

Of course this extra spending will be from the NHS budgets. It would be at the expense of other departments and treatments for other people.

We haven't seen the details for this pledge that:

Patients in England suspected of suffering from cancer will have the right to see a specialist within two weeks

What does it actually mean? How long does a person suspected of suffering from cancer have to wait at the moment? Perhaps most people in that situation see a specialist within a week at the moment!

What is meant by  a 'cancer specialist'? It should certainly mean that the person is a qualified oncologist. It probably won't be a consultant but one of his team instead. If I was a consultant running a department then I would make sure that this initial appointment was with very junior members of the team!!!

This two week deadline may keep consultant oncologists busy with private work. But every penny spent on private fees is money being taken out of the NHS system!

Seeing a specialist and then actually receiving any treatment are two completely different things!

And what happens if a person sees a private specialist because there was no one available on the NHS? Do they then get referred back to the NHS once the New Labour pledge of a private appointment has been met? Or do they stay in the private health system for all of their treatment?