Not Evan's Darling, then

Brilliant interview of Darling by Evan Davies on the Today Programme this morning.

Ignoring all the ‘help for families now’ bullshit, he got stuck right into the Chancellor, repeating and repeating the five things which needed to be said:

1. The Budget figures are tosh.
2. The 50 per cent tax rate is wholly political and economically irrelevant.
3. This is a do-nothing budget. There is really serious danger for the country from 2013 onwards and you have done nothing about it.
4. You have put off absolutely everything that needs to be done until after the election so that your opponents will have to do the really hard stuff at enormous political cost.
5. You are proposing cuts for after 2011 which are deeper than those made by the Thatcher government.
6. You are proposing cuts and savings which you said were impossible and wicked when the Tories proposed them.

Darling had no answers. He stuck to a monotonous chant of 'global shock to the system'. He was bang to rights - politically - and he knew he was.

In the space of about twelve minutes, Davies accused Darling, and by obvious implication, Brown, of concocting an irresponsible, political budget comprising lies, hypocrisy, fake figures, economic incompetence of the highest order, gross dereliction of duty and a pre-election scorched earth policy.

And he did all in the best possible taste.

Nice work, Mr Davies. Keep it up.