Prime Minister's Questions was very lively today and I wrote the instant assessment below for revamped mirror.co.uk which is well worth a daily read, for politics as well as sport and entertainment.

David Cameron needs to see a doctor after Ed Miliband roughed him up over
the National Health Service.
The Prime Minister's blood pressure soared, going red in the face and
sounding so agitated I feared he'd self-combust.
Cameron's ticker was in danger because he's not stupid, and must regret
ever threatening Britain's best loved institution.
Miliband and Cameron quoted supporters back at each in a rowdy Prime
Minister's Questions but the PM cannot win when doctors, nurses, midwives
and patients are against him.
The merits or otherwise of the reforms are overshadowed by the bitter
political battle.
Miliband, who put in another good Commons shift, was on the money
asserting that Cameron "knows in his heart of hearts" the Health and
Social Care Bill is a disaster.
Cameron wouldn't start from here and was drowning not waving at the
despatch box.
The Labour leader wisely broadened out his attack to question Cameron's
trustworthiness, reminding the Tory leader that, in Opposition, he ruled
out top-down NHS reform.
Cameron's acutely aware of his vulnerability but is powerless as long as
he refuses to Kill the Bill, as Miliband demanded.
The battle shifts to the House of Lords later today.
Whatever the outcome of those votes, Cameron's on a hiding to nothing.
He even played his family card to show support for the health service.
But it'll do him no good. He's on a hiding to nothing. And Cameron knows
it.
Oh how he must wish he could wind back the clock.

...said new Tory co-Treasurer Michael Farmer in this revealing Daily Telegraph interview in March 2010.

David Cameron probably didn't know about the interview. Mr Farmer possibly forgot about it. But appointing a hedge fund shark to such a hight profile post makes a mockery of the "new politics" once promised by the Prime Minister. Instead, it looks as if they - the very wealthy - are all in this together, with stockbroker's son Dave heading the political wing of the wealth overclass.

Another day, another Twitter Storm. This time over a Parliamentary researcher Tweeting Her Maj has been "scrounging benefits off the taxpayer" for 60 years. Not very funny or original. Indeed it's the type of bad joke I might make myself. But the manufactured outrage(particularly you, Charlie Elphicke) is tiresome.

I've never met the Labour shadow frontbench aide Matt Zarb-Cousin at the centre of the _ better type this quick - latest controversy. He's apologised and if I was him, I wouldn't worry. There'll be another Twitter storm along shortly to blow his away. The fury is boringly predictable and, as a result, losing its force. Good.

As much of a democrat as I am, I couldn't resist picking my own unelected Cabinet after Italy's new Premier Mario Monti went all technocratic. Feel free to appoint your own. Elected politicians are banned!

Prime Minister: Alex Ferguson
Chancellor: Larry Elliott
Home: Helen Mirren
Foreign: Judith Chalmers
Justice: Shami Chakrabarti
Business: John Monks
Work & Pensions: J K Rowling
Health: Gail Platt
Education: Peter Lampl
Environment: Bill Bryson
Energy & Climate Change: Jonathan Porritt
Defence: Richad Kemp
Local Government: Ken Livingstone
Transport: Chris Hoy
Culture: Russell Brand
International Development: Michael Palin
Cabinet Office: Terry Leahy
Wales: Katherine Jenkins
Scotland: George Galloway
Northern Ireland: Peter Tatchell
Leader of the Commons: Jo Brand
Chief Whip: Roy Keane

I'm in Manchester for the Tory conference and the first person I bumped into was the PM himself. More of that another time and in another place.

However, it set me thinking. Media speculation is building about his big speech on Wednesday. The conference slogan is "Leadership for a better future" and the advance spin is a presidential message of stick with me, I'll get Britain through austerity(ignoring that DC is imposing some of it) and this latterday Earl of Grantham really, really cares. Honest.

But can you remember the theme of Cameron's speech last year? No, me neither. It's here if you wish to check. Very Kitchener-esque. I recall he too sank without trace.

...would be a more accurate headline on this naked piece of special pleading by a motley band who, after scanning down the list of signatories, I'd be surprised if many - indeed any - survive on less than £150k(including directorships, consultancies). This is the FT coverage, with registration needed to have a peep.

The lack of scepticism when the well-heeled seek a handout, requesting charity for the rich, irks me. Scepticism bordering on hostility would've been the response to trade unionists organising a similar letter to put the(deserving) case for those on low and middle incomes.

The anti-50p campaign is well organised and funded. The public, however, hasn't swallowed the propaganda and thinks the top tax is fair. Take note, George Osborne, the Trustafarian millionaire in the Treasury who is itching to give a windfall to those earning upwards of £3,000 as he squeezes living standards for most of the naton. We're all in this together? No.

So Tony Blair, according to advance PR leaks of Alistair Darling's memoirs, found "dealing with GB is like having dental treatment with no anaesthetic". Bambi was a big softie!

Because GB - Gordon Brown - actually had dental treatment without anaesthetic. The former Prime Minister, I was once assured by a well-placed snout, has a phobia about needles. The intense dislike of needles may date back to his eye ordeal as a teenager, though een I find the sweetcorn harder to grasp.

So Blair should consider himself lucky that Brown only shouted at him instead of strapping him into a chair to endure what Brown himself went through and the Dustin Hoffman character experienced in Marathon Man at the hands of a particularly nasty dentist. Compared to them both, Blair had it easy...

Sargeant-Major David Blunkett penned a piece in today's Daily Mail headlined "Why Britain needs a new kind of National Service" which is worryingly confused.

I don't have the energy to list all the contradictions, and I understand if you can't be bothered to read the former Home Secretary's article, but it beats me how Blunkers can call his plan a National Volunteer Programme then he's threatening to cut the benefits of jobless youngsters who refuse to enlist. That sounds more like conscription to me.

And I feel queasy about Blunkers using vulnerable elderly and disabled people to civilise coerced teenagers who mightn't turn up with a smile when they've been forced onto the scheme.

Disaffected young people need to be engaged but the Blunkett Youth should remain a rant in the Daily Mail. And if you've read his piece and feel depressed, here's a funny clip from Get Some In which was a 1970s skit on National Service.

I take my hat off to Richard Murphy, the accountant who keeps up a daily(and occasionally hourly) battle against wealthy tax dodgers.

Richard's exposed the holes in the Government's contemptible Emmental deal which lets British tax dodgers legally avoid their dues by squirrelling billions in Switzerland with a barrage of well-argued pieces. And he still found time to take an financial chainsaw to the so-called Taxpayers' Alliance.

His latest post - Let's not get personal - this is a matter of right or wrong - was under an hour ago and is spot on. We've got to take sides on tax. Rich individuals, corporations, well-funded special interest groups and much of Fleet Street is on one(the wrong) side and then there is Richard Murphy plus a few others, includling yours truly. But it is Murphy who is the heroic figure. Tireless and forensic, driven by an admirable moral fervour, I take my hat off to a campaigner with Duracell batteries.

Fantastic footage of hacks in old newsrooms including the Mirror, Times and Sheffield Star in this rough cut of an Adam Curtis film on the downfall of press baron Cecil King who used to run my paper - and in 1968 plotted a bizarre coup against Harold Wilson!

The King tale is extraordinary(not to say unsettling) but is reasonably well known so it was the shots of reporters covering stories and putting papers together that I particulalry loved. And Boy, how newsrooms were male dominated back in the '60s!

Highlights include the Mirror's chief crime corr recounting how a reader turned up at the office to confess a double murder, bringing body parts from one of his victims as proof, Robin Day quizzing Foreign Secretary George Brown about being a drunk and Ronnie Corbett posing with a giant pair of scissors(though a regular pair would look big in his hands) for a Tesco stunt.

The comments on Adam's blog are worth reading too and I'll forgive the film maker a cheeky dig that everyone knows that newspapers don't always tell the truth(words "glass" and "houses" come to mind alongside BBC, Panorama, Award & Returned). But I hope you enjoy what I think's a terrific documentary.