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I’d like to suggest a small reform* to Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament.

To wit: I think it should be renamed Prime Minister’s Answers. That way Gordon Brown would be in no doubt as to what he’s supposed to be supplying during these sessions.

Of late, and in a literal interpretation of the session’s title, the Prime Minister has taken to providing his own questions rather than answering the ones directed at him.

Here he is, last week:

I have to ask him: does he support identity cards for foreign nationals, which we are introducing this year?

I ask the right hon. Gentleman again: does he support ID cards for foreign nationals—yes or no? He says that he is against them; is he in favour of them for foreign nationals?

Why did the Conservatives have 18 years of not reducing the rate of capital gains tax?

And he was at it again this week:

The Leader of the Opposition wholeheartedly supported our action. He said that it was right to inject “liquidity to Northern Rock”. Is he changing his mind?

Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition will answer the question: does he still support our action?

Is the right hon. Gentleman now telling me that, from a position of wholeheartedly supporting that action, he is now against it—yes or no?

It really isn’t right. The Prime Minister is asking more questions each week than the leader of the Liberal Democrats. I’d say the Downing Street web team need to update the website or risk action for false advertising:

The PM answers questions every week that Parliament is in session…

If Gordon Brown wants to ask David Cameron questions across the Commons’ dispatch box, isn’t some kind of job swap in order?

To be fair though, this technique of evasion is harder than it looks. It’s obviously stolen from the old ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway?‘ game where you have to respond to every question with another question. Try it on your next boring car journey. It’s like the ‘can’t say yes/no’ game – you have to have your wits about you. Gordon Brown must have a mind like a greased whippet.

That said, such lightning-fast thought processes clearly provide no impetus towards democratic accountability. I, for example, have a three-year old who can do jigsaws like they’re coming back into fashion but you try convincing her she’s in the minority in wanting to watch In the Night Garden AGAIN. All you get is plaintive, playing-for-time and misdirecting questions from her as well. She just does it with a little more dignity and panache.

*In it’s true sense, not as code for privatising it.