Mark Ferguson of LabourList well and truly earned his union keep with his response to today’s Spending Round. Choking back the tears as he whined about Osborne’s “nasty, vicious, small politics”, Ferguson launched into a tour de force of hyperbolic, hand-wringing rhetoric well worthy of the Order of the OTT:

“But it’s fine, because we can all marvel at hilarious jokes about how fatty Eric Pickles is an example of lean government, as people starve and are driven to charity by this heartless, vindictive and mean little man. Ed Balls, in response,was excellent – far better than last autumn – lambasting and lampooning the Chancellor. And I’d love to write about how good that felt, watching him whomp this ignorant fool about the chamber.

But if I did I’d be lying. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about those people. And that hunger. And those lost jobs. And those presentless Christmases. And those queues growing outside payday lenders and food banks. And I just felt f***ing sick.”

Imagine what he’d be like if spending was actually going down…