Mr Timebomb faces down Mr Do-Nothing

David Cameron had the flushed look of righteous - not to say Rightish - outrage on his youthful features and thundered about the "Timebomb Prime Minister". Mr Brown had been found out, the economy ruined: oh happy Tory day.

The problem with the new Tory revival of the 1992 campaign so early is that we will have to listen to a metaphor about timebombs ticking away for a very long time. Would Mr Timebomb apologise for boom and bust? Mr Brown had said, "oops, sorry about that" on the radio last week (blink and you missed it), but he wasn't going to oblige Mr Cameron with a repeat broadcast. The counter-attack was a loud blunderbuss: "He is no longer a credible politician: he's a do-nothing politician".

A picture is being carefully stitched together of languid Conservatives disporting themselves in White's club while the repo-man moves and middle England migrates en masse to the job centre. We refought the class war (again) as a side line. "It's easy for those born with a silver spoon in their mouths to want to do nothing," thundered one of those Scottish MPs they produce to frighten southerners.

Speaking of silver spoons, up rose the unmistakable bulk of Nicholas Soames, identifying with the suffering masses in that specially earnest tone Tory grandees use when siding with the poor. Sniggeritis reached epic proportions on the Labour benches.

But hold: a ghost from Mr Brown's near-miss summer haunted the chamber. Siobhan McDonagh, aka the Morden murderess who tried to kill off the PM in a backbench coup, was on her feet - wearing a necklace so heavy that we wondered if she might have been clamped in irons as punishment. Should local councils welcome the Prime Minister's tax plans? Indeed, replied Mr Brown coldly. He knows where Ms McDonagh lives.

Brooks Newmark, an allegedly smart City-trained Tory, asked: "Can you name a country with a bigger growth deficit than the UK?" "America," said Mr Brown with all the brio of a boy who used to win spelling bee competitions at Kirkcaldy High. Shouts of "Brooks Nomarks" echoed. Now everyone can spend the rest of the day arguing the small print of who is right. Andrew Lansley's "recession's jolly good for you" foot-in-mouth moment kept the PM crowing. Mr Cameron intervened frantically with the Speaker to stop Mr Brown repeating the quote.

"Why has the pound lost a quarter of its value since July?" ventured someone, a rare example of a backbencher asking something a member of the public might want to know. Gordon cited that newly minted Brownite heroine, Mrs Thatcher, against "talking the currency down".

Up in the gallery, Peter Mandelson kept a wary eye on his new charge.

Can New Labour be dead when Mr Mandelson is still alive and well and bossing the PM about? There's a conundrum for our mixed up times.