Strong, calm Brown tames the excitable pony

annalisa barbieri is impressed by Gordon Brown’s logical demolition of Cameron’s barbs

The problem is, I love Gordon Brown. So it's hard for me to be absolutely objective about his first Prime Minister's Questions.

The first odd thing to mention was that he was wearing a silver blue (colour of intellectual calmness) tie and not Labour-sympathetic red. When he was a man-in-waiting he wore lots of red ties (red is the colour of masculinity); in fact the more angry he got with Tony, the redder his ties became.

Second, Mr Brown had obviously put his jacket on in such a hurry (I'll bet he had to go to the loo just before PMQs) that he clearly hadn't held his shirt sleeves in place, resulting in a very crinkled shirt front.

However, none of this matters because aside from one cringe-worthy moment - "The opposition forgets I've only been in this job for five days" - which just made me go 'ahhh'

like a mother watching her child in the school play, Gordon Brown was good.

Those who expected him to be dour and boring will have been disappointed. He was strong, calm and steadfast (words he also used a lot to describe the attitude we could now expect of his new government) in comparison with the excitable pony that was David Cameron, all red-flushed cheeks and shining eyes.

But as well as those substantial traits, Brown was also something that real people find immensely appealing: he was logical.

When answering Cameron's question of why the Government didn't ban the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, because the group has called for the 'killing of all Jews', Brown simply said that he would "look at the evidence - and the evidence can't be one or two quotes".

This was so beautifully honest as to be almost poetic. I can't wait to see what he actually does though.