Stand by for combat

Last Tuesday I spent half an hour in the Strangers Gallery of the House of Commons behind the new glass screen which has been fitted to discourage the throwing into the chamber of paper darts, toilet rolls, bombs, etc., and listened to some less than thrilling replies to questions about about the new quangos being set up to reduce the number and cost of quangos (or something like that).
I had to be in the Palace of Westminster on that day for a reason quite unconnected with parliament, and of course everyone is telling me that I was unlucky not to have been there yesterday when the new Leader of the Opposition faced the PM for the first time.
I must say that I am unable to share the feeling of happy anticipation (among the media) about the prospect of exciting exchanges at Prime Minister’s Question Time now that (they say) TB’s new opponent is fractionally less dreary than any of those he has had in recent years. This may well be true, though hardly likely to fill us with a resolve not to miss anything these two repellent characters may say to each other.
We may well merely feel, as we did at the time of the Al Fayed/Hamilton legal battle, that it's such a pity that they can’t both lose.