Last night’s Channel Four News pointed the finger of blame at Steve Hilton for the messy week that the Prime Minster is having. The list of things for Miliband to pick up on at PMQs is endless, but not everyone is having the same nightmare. Next door at No.11 Osborne couldn’t have asked for much more in the last couple of days. The day after a handful of dubious academics criticised him, the thousand-economists-strong IMF patted him on the head. Balls and the rest of the B-team have been unable to spin very much, and the sharpest critics have been those calling for harder and faster cuts. To cap it all off Moody’s have said Britain’s AAA credit rating could be under threat if there “slippage in the government’s fiscal plans”. In other words if the B-team get their way.

It’s noticeable that all of the u-turns have stuck to Cameron, despite Osborne being in the nerve centre too. The forests, the books, the prisons etcetera, are small change compared to Osborne’s overall deficit reduction strategy. A Chancellor getting his own way while keeping his powder dry? We’ve been down this road before…