THEY cancelled the traditional reading of prayers when the House of Commons began its session yesterday – the MPs simply sang the Red Flag instead.

Gordon Brown opened proceedings by delving into his 1975 pamphlet “The Red Paper” – his radical plan for full-blooded socialism – and read a key chapter on taking the banks into public ownership.

For 30 years, the prime minister had insisted he no longer possessed the book, but he had hidden away a well-thumbed copy at the back of a shelf, behind a dozen books on freeing the markets from regulation.

Then, “Clydeside Cameron” roared his approval, that being the popular new nickname for the Conservative leader with his battle cry: “No more bonuses for City fat cats!”

Okay, it wasn’t quite like that in the Commons yesterday, but truly it felt – in the phrase normally used about the execution of Charles 1 – that this was The World Turned Upside Down.

Not only was Labour seemingly enacting Clause 4, by seizing the commanding heights of the economy, but it was doing so with Tory support.

And, almost as significantly, as Mr Brown pulverised his opposite number at prime minister’s questions, it felt that Gordon was, finally, back in the game.

For a year, the Wednesday pattern has been set. The fleet-footed Mr Cameron has danced around the lumbering Labour leader who has soaked up punishment week-on-week.

Yesterday, Gordon “Father of the Nation” Brown was back – the one whose popularity soared as he dealt competently with crisis after crisis in the summer of 2007.

First there was a great act of political theatre – the announcing of a long-demanded interest rate cut, supposedly the job of an independent committee he set up.

Then, as he outlined the rescue package and what it would achieve, the prime minister was commanding, calm, statesmanlike – and able to claim Britain “led the world” in taking action.

The charge dominating the morning papers – dithering – was never uttered.

ROBERT MERRICK