Some surprise at this week's PMQs, as while pencils were being sharpened to mark up the Brown/Cameron scorecard the prime minister chose to drop in what sounded like a fairly significant policy U-turn.
Andy Reed, Labour MP for Loughborough and Christian socialist, asked if Brown would consider revising government thinking on supercasinos in light of concerns over gambling problems from the "faith community".
Brown said he wanted to use the summer months to look at whether Britain's down-at-heel coastal resorts could be regenerated without turning them into a windswept Las Vegas, which sounded like the end of the Blair-era project.
Cameron used all of his questions on the NHS, picking up on the report by Sir Ara - soon to be Lord - Darzi, urging London to create a network of "polyclinics" across the capital. Cameron repeatedly suggested the report meant hospital closures.
It actually said: "The days of the district general hospital seeking to provide all services to a high enough standard are over", which, depending on how you interpret it, could mean services facing the chop.
But Brown countered by quoting Sir Ara, who told the Guardian: "I don't think there will be any closures of hospitals."
He also quoted a Tory report on something to do with funding mechanisms and hospitals, but either the report itself or Brown's re-reading of it sounded like incomprehensible Whitehall-ese.
Cameron seems to have decided to pick up the theme of Labour's NHS "cuts" once again, now one of the Tories' longest-running campaigns.
It may serve to help detoxify the "nasty party" for the electorate, and it always riles the Labour benches. Brown did a convincing job rallying his MPs by bellowing a list of NHS improvements since 1997.
His all-purpose line, "he can go for his PR, I'll go for being PM and we can get on with the job" felt a trifle contrived.
Cameron's line was "more of the same from a government that's failed", but he also seems to be carving out a decent line of attack by posing apparently simple questions and then accusing Brown of ducking the simple answers.
Of course there usually is no simple answer to an Opposition question, but it is testament to Cameron's ability as a communicator that he makes it sound like the most reasonable request in the world.
Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell asked how much had been wasted by working tax credits, Brown's baby when chancellor (the Lib Dems put it at £9bn in the first three years).
The prime minister acknowledged there had been problems, but ducked the substance of the question and insisted the scheme had taken 600,000 children out of poverty.
Sir Menzies quoted Brown on the Today programme saying there was still "a long way to go". The prime minister retorted that the leader of the Opposition "knows what it means by saying a long way to go", but whether this was aimed at Sir Ming or Cameron was unclear.
Romford's Andrew Rosindell, once referred to by the Times as "a Thatcherite Essex Tory out of central casting", congratulated Brown for backing his campaign to fly the Union Flag from public buildings, and moved swiftly on to the West Lothian question.
This looks set to make regular appearances at PMQs because of the swelling anger it inspires in the Tory ranks - always comparing the power of an English MP with Brown - although Brown's statesmanlike appeal to the Union was, as usual, a powerful rejoinder.
The verdict
Brown: 7/10 - Improvement on last week's performance.
Cameron: 7/10 - Making headway with accusation that Brown "can't answer a straight question".
Campbell: 5/10 - Blink and you might have missed it.
