Tories and Labour prove George Monbiot right in his debate with Hazel Blears

Cabinet Minister Hazel Blears appears to be backing down in her debate with George Monbiot, or maybe she's bored of the whole debate.

Instead of firing off another column in retaliation to George Monbiot's latest salvo, she's decided to write a letter to the Guardian instead inviting George Monbiot to visit her constituency of Salford so young Labour party members and Blears could show Monbiot round, which would apparently explain why she was "voting Labour in the Commons for the past 12 years."

So Hazel Blears is proposing that Salford Labour Party members and herself tell George Monbiot how well Labour is doing in Salford and elsewhere.

I can see George Monbiot taking her up on that totally unbiased tour of Salford.

Ironically (and doesn't irony seem to be heavy in the air like 1950's fog recently?), MP's seized the opportunity to show how they could waste time and money by picking fights with each other.

After the usual slanging match that is prime minister's questions, tedious David Cameron brought up the subject of Gordon Brown getting the painter Titian's age wrong when mentioning him at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Nothing much has happened in Britain or globally, you see, so they were stuck for things to discuss.

Things became more pointless when a Tory staff member editied Wikipedia's entry on Titian so his age was listed as 86, the age Cameron claimed in the House of Commons he had died at.

Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle wasted more time by asking the deputy Speaker of the House of Commons: "I wonder whether you could tell the House whether you have had representations from the leader of the opposition so that he might correct the comments that he made about Titian.

"Or is it enough in this modern age for the leader of the opposition's staff simply to alter Wikipedia?"

So all this time-wasting over a trivia mistake made by Gordon Brown a month ago.

Next Prime Minister's Questions, Nick Clegg will tell David Cameron off for getting the Celebrity Big Brother 2009 winner's name wrong and this will become the fifth most read story on the BBC, just like this rubbish was.