Guido never really bought into the decrying of Norman Lamont. He said a few things that were ill-judged but his judgement wasn’t that bad. He was put into the ERM debacle by Major and was happy to escape it, even if it was a messy exit.

So it was good to see his double rehabilitation yesterday, not just with Shriti welcoming “green shoots” but the Prime Mentalist himself quoting the former Chancellor’s views. Cameron was attacking the VAT reduction, Brown defended it bya citing Lord Lamont support for it. Prudent Gordon who spent a decades denouncing Lamont as an uncaring, incompetent, economic buffoon responsible for the destruction of the British economy, is now cited by Brown as evidence of the rectitude of Labour economic strategy.

In the same vein yesterday Phil Woolas chided Norman Tebbit on the Daily Politics for his wooly liberalism on immigration issues. Who is nasty now?