Guido’s Lie-Ometer is flashing. This ambush has been a long time coming, but come it has and it seems to have worked. The Tories, far from cutting public expenditure, plan to increase it by 4% year-on-year and Labour plan to increase it 5% year-on-year. So by 2011-12 the Tories plan to increase spending by £145 billion and Labour says it plans to increase spending by £180 billion. So no cuts, just less spending growth.

ITV reporter Nick Robinson single – handedly demolished the press launch for the poster, leaving the PM floundering with his line of questioning. Gordon smirked throughout Blair’s discomfort. Robinson asked: “Why do you persist in misrepresenting your opponents’ policies? You know they are saying they will increase spending but at a slower rate?” “Actually, that is not what they’re saying,” the Prime Minister lied. “You can’t cut money that hasn’t been spent,” Nick said. “You’re alleging they’ll make cuts. But now you’re saying they’ll spend less. The words are different!”

“They’re not different,” lied the Prime Minister again. Something tells me Nick Robinson won’t be getting any exclusives from Downing Street for a long time – or at least not from No. 10, No. 11 might have an open door.

Blair said that £35bn is “the equivalent of sacking every doctor, teacher and nurse in the country”. Does he expect anybody to actually believe that is the Tory plan?

Yesterday Gordon took credit in his speech for an impressive 50 quarters of consecutive growth. “Today I can report economic growth for the 50th consecutive quarter. The budget forecast is continued growth in quarters 51, 52, 53 and 54.”

An excellent record going back 12 1/2 years to the autumn of 1992. Guido remembers September 1992 well, the economy was unshackled from the sado-monetarism of shadowing the Bundesbank and White Wednesday began our long unbroken boom…

Lamont sang Non Je Ne Regrette Rien in the bath after he exited us from the ERM madness, but Gordon Brown described the ERM as applying ‘socialist planning’ to the economy rather than ‘relying on market forces’. He told the parliamentary Labour party ‘We can fight the speculators if we join the ERM’. Gordon was a fan of the ERM and the Labour party was enthusiastic for Britain to remain shackled to it.

So the foundations of Gordon’s 50 consecutive quarters of growth actually include 5 years of Tory economic stewardship with a policy opposed by Brown. The bit of Gordon’s budget speech that got edited out is here.

I thought I heard prudence mentioned only once, that will confound the gamblers. FT.com is the place for you number monkeys, here I’ll be focusing on the jokes and tittle-tattle.

Even cynical Guido believed Brown had led us to the promised land by the end of his speech, the Labour benches loved it, despite some very New Labour promises – £14 billion of privatisation for example. Guido thought it was a good solid performance.

Howard was smart enough not to fight over the economy, it is after all in pretty good shape, he focused on the Tory’s negative themes of tax and spend, bureaucracy, red tape and waste. He also cracked a few jokes at Milburn’s expense – who grimaced, looking uncomfortable – Howard likes to highlight Labour infighting. Quoting indiscrete Labour politicians is a smart move, it puts the spotlight on them, Brown’s Treasury / Financial Secretaries have been disloyal and frozen out, so Howard mentioned them as well as Frank Field’s stinging criticism. Howard’s confidence was such that he goaded Milburn’s faltering campaign management skills, his jibe about Brown holding on to the dispatch box “like it was Milburn’s windpipe” raised the most laughs on the Labour benches.

Guido gently hinted last Friday that all was not right in the mind of Adrian Hilton, Tory PPC for Slough. In a gently worded piece I said that he was bonkers. Hilton opposed “the subjugation of Britain’s Protestant ethos to Roman Catholic social, political and religious teaching”. I warned that “Hilton forgets England was Catholic before and it will be Catholic again – or my name is not Guido Fawkes!”

So it has come to pass that Howard has sacked him as payback to Cardinal Cormac and the plot continues. Slough Tories should try selecting candidates carefully after the last two – Hilton’s predecessor was a gun nut, sacked after being pictured in the Sun posing as Rambo.