That's why you're paid the big bucks

Not a huge story on last evening's ITN broadcast, though made one by the fact it involved the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Speaker of the House of Commons and some heated (for Parliament) dialogue.

This is Prime Minister's Question Time (strictly speaking the PM's Engagements) when questions regarding the government can be put forth. Mr Cameron asked

I know that the right hon. Gentleman does not want to talk about the Chancellor he cannot even mention his name —but let us just spend a moment on the subject. Let me put the question that I put to him three weeks ago. In January, the Prime Minister said:

“I'm absolutely happy that Gordon Brown will be my successor.

Does the Prime Minister—

Before being interupted by the Speaker who quite rightly pointed out that

Questions should be about the business of the Government. The issue of who will be the next leader of the Labour party is for the Labour party to talk about and decide

Mr Cameron got testy, but was allowed to ask

Perhaps with my last question I can ask the Prime Minister who he would like to see as the next Prime Minister of this country.

To which he got an answer.

The reporter's response to this was that he couldn't see the difference between the two questions posed by Mr Cameron. Oookay the Speaker actually pointed out the difference; the first question was put as an internal Labour Party question, the second as a question regarding government. The difference is quite apparent to anyone who has any knowledge of parliamentary procedure, something that a reporter covering Parliament should perhaps acquire.