Politics is going retro. Old is the new new in Westminster and this made for a rather unnerving PMQs. New Labour has turned into Old Labour of tax and spend. The New Conservatives have turned into the Old Conservatives of don't tax and don't spend. And the Lib-Dems? Well, Nick Clegg has got a new haircut that already looks dated. Does that count?

All in all, PMQs was like something out of the Seventies without, sadly, the Abba glitter.

But Gordon loves the Seventies for, like a certain Swedish pop group, he's having a revival. Indeed I hear Downing Street is already on the case to mastermind a musical called Papa Mia about a man who, against all odds and with the aid of only a moral compass, become Father of the Global Economy.

It will be a one-man show with, yes, singing and dancing. Gordon wants to follow in John Sergeant's shoes in whatever way he can. All of this explains why Gordo looks so incredibly at home these days while Dave has seemed a bit lost (he was only four when the Seventies dawned and that makes him only a Bambino Mia). But yesterday Dave looked better than he has for ages. Finally, he is a man with a plan. The fact that it is Plan B is irrelevant.

Gordon began by singing his own praises (well it is HIS musical). “I think we were right to recapitalise the banks!” he trilled. “This has now been followed by every country in the world.” Wow. That's 195 countries, give or take a Taiwan or two, following Gordon. He sang Take a Chance on Me - and they have. (I could already see this in the Papa Mia running order.)

Dave, in his pathetically parochial way, tried to bring things back to Britain where, he claimed, those recapitalised banks were trying to charge small businesses for breathing.

“We have done what we can,” said Gordo though, surely, that cannot be true for Super-Gordo (he's updating Super-Trouper).

Dave mocked this and Gordo reacted as if stung by a bee, furiously slapping away at the Tories because they are against “fiscal expansion”.

This is code for the case for tax cuts which Abba, of course, foretold in that homage to Keynes, “Money, Money, Money”. “All the things I could do/If I had a little money” is just one inspirational lyric: I rest my case.

Dave pounced. “I know you are desperate to go on a borrowing binge. Everyone wants to know how you are going to pay for it. The Employment Minister, Business Secretary and the Chancellor have all said taxes will have to rise. Isn't that true?”

Up in the gallery, Lord Mandelson, who is retro incarnate, watched silently, hand cupping chin. I suspect he is a man who knows his Abba. Perhaps this whole thing really can be blamed on him. There was a crowd of lords and ladies with him yesterday, for the peers cannot get enough of Mandy's stardust. It really is only a matter of time before he is dancing on air.

Down below, the PM was pointedly not answering the tax question. “The Tories are the do-nothing party,” he ranted, “when it comes to now and they will let the country down by their actions.”

Can you do nothing and have actions? Well if Gordon says so, it must be true for this is his musical at the moment and, don't forget, in Abba-land as in politics, the winner takes it all.

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