By David Thompson Political correspondent, BBC News

Crewe and Nantwich, 42 days, tax discs and the price of petrol have all thrown fuel on the political funeral pyre David Cameron is trying to build under Gordon Brown.

And the week away from Westminster allowed both men to polish up their jokes. Unfortunately.

The row over the plan to increase Vehicle Excise Duty on older, larger cars - VED to you and me - VAD to the Prime Minister, apparently - was too much of a temptation for the Leader of the Opposition to resist.

It almost backfired when Gordon Brown alleged the Tories would actually have gone further, causing a rare grimace of pain from David Cameron.

But he hit back, claiming trading standards should investigate the prime minister's claims for the tax. The Tory leader was then accused of sounding like a used car salesman (geddit !), to which David Cameron replied that at least his backbenchers weren't telling him to get on his bike.

Laugh? I almost did.

Then David Cameron taunted the prime minister, quoting from a report which claimed a senior member of the Cabinet has said, among other unkind things, that he is "crap at communication".

"Which one, which one ?" he crowed, pointing at the Labour frontbench, who gave nothing away. Safety in numbers.

Gordon Brown riposted that the Leader of the Opposition had nothing to say on matters of substance. It was like they'd never been away.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, asked the prime minister to strip Robert Mugabe of his knighthood, which got a less than definitive response, while Boris Johnson, in the dying embers of his life as an MP, tried to inject a note of real levity into proceedings by asking Gordon Brown to effectively agree that everything he had done since becoming Mayor had been brilliant.

Unfortunately, the Speaker Michael Martin cut him off in his prime as we awaited what might have been a genuinely funny moment in the overheated atmosphere of prime minister's questions.

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