Bloody toffs

Public schoolboy (Loretto College) Alastair Darling's Permanent Secretary at the Treasury is one Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Old Etonian.

Macpherson coordinated the handover from Chancellor Kenneth Clark to Chancellor Gordon Brown before being appointed to the top job by Gordon Brown.

Macpherson was in charge of taxation policy for Gordon Brown and still is, for Alastair Darling.

The Labour government's taxation policy has been in the hands of an Old Etonian since 1997.

Brown must have forgotten.