Gordon Brown claims that he will reinstate the importance of Parliament. He has a job on his hands. The current PM has no appetite for debate when he can be off on a foreign jolly or quizzed gently on a television sofa. Today, Tony’s representative on Earth, John Prescott drowned in word soup as he put on another embarrasing performance in his valedictory PMQs.

He seemed to know nothing of the problems with the online system for junior doctors’ jobs and little about the problems with Home Information Packs.

When asked who would take responsibility for the latest chaos in the NHS, Prescott said “I’ll tell you who is to blame… medical students.” This was an interesting take on the situation and one that I don’t think that Patricia Hewitt would be wise to continue with when trying to save her job.

The rest of the exchange with William Hague was Prescott blaming the Tories for the Dome, for losing the election in 2001 and the baggage retrieval situation at Heathrow. OK, I made the last one up but he knows what he needs to do if he wants the Conservative Leader to be the one answering the questions at PMQs. The Speaker was incredibly lenient allowing him to start on the Conservative position on Grammar Schools even though this was as far removed from the topic as Tony is from Parliament.

My rant is over: normal service will be resumed.