I was seated next to one of David Cameron's bright young men at lunch the other day. We were marvelling at Gordon Brown's genius for shooting himself in the foot, in PR terms. Telling us not to waste food and jetting off for an 18-course banquet - was there genuinely no one in the No 10 press machine that saw that one coming? (Such as you, Stephen Carter, once a brainbox regulator and then a Brunswick spin doctor?)

Tearing up the rule book, fiscally, when the game starts to go against you, however it might suit economic circumstances, will also provide team Cameron with plenty of ammunition. But our clever Cameron aide might consider this. The Prime Minister has just made the first couple of years of a Tory administration, should they then need to pump money into the economy, unspeakably worse.

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