Poor old Rory Stewart spent five minutes defending the National Insurance rise on the Daily Politics, before being informed live on air that Hammond had just u-turned. It is difficult to overestimate the anger among Tory MPs sent out to defend the rise. As James Cleverly told Hammond at the 1922 last week, MPs were prepared to go out and defend the policy so long as the government didn’t u-turn and make them look like fools. Now they have done exactly that…

UPDATE: Vaizey not happy:

Blimey. I’ve been vigorously defending it… https://t.co/WQKXZYWgaK

— Ed Vaizey (@edvaizey) March 15, 2017