Tories in full-blooded, confident attack on the Government. Whatever next?

Power junkies should watch the Speaker's sudden assertion of authority and learn how it's done. It's probably textbook, but you don't come across it often, not in public. He's chosen his ground, he's prepared his audience, he goes for the big beast.

Gordon Brown, by way of not answering a question, was jeering at something he said the Leader of the Opposition had once said to the shadow Chancellor. Tory uproar. The Speaker called for order; Mr Brown sat down, assuming it was the Tories who were to be reprimanded; the Speaker told him to belt up. "Divisions in the Conservative Party are nothing to do with him."

The jeering is also interesting. The Government no longer affects Olympian disdain; once more they are jeering at the opposition. Tony Blair started it. "Pathetic!" he is saying again. "Ridiculous! That just shows the state of the Conservative Party!" Any criticism or indeed questioning of the handling of the firefighters strike is dismissed as "transparent opportunism". It means they're rattled. Why wouldn't they be?

Even Ed Balls, in the traditional backstage briefing after the Chancellor's statement, seemed a little less certain than normal. You may not know, but the press corps largely leaves the chamber as soon as the Chancellor has finished speaking in order to find out what we've just heard. Mr Balls, as the Sorceror's Apprentice, answers every question the gallery has to ask. Normally Mr Balls is masterful and crisp; yesterday he wandered somewhat. We're not used to that. What's going on, when even Mr Balls wanders?

The new uncertainty, that's the state of the economic cycle we're entering. The economic cycle is the construct used by the Chancellor to justify his plans. The budget must balance over the cycle. The Treasury says the cycle will finish in March 2004. This is not the time or place to debate the point, but all philosophers agree that the economic cycle is only apparent after it's finished. The cycle is entirely unpredictable. Perhaps that's what's suddenly occurring to them now. A simple housing crash, for instance, would cause such a slump in consumer spending that all forecasts would be worthless.

Michael Howard, the shadow Chancellor, led a boisterous attack on the Chancellor's forecasts and assumptions, and even more cheerfully, on the Chancellor. "There they sit. What a shambles, what a shower! Brown and Blair, the posturing pair!" The Sketch cannot condone any form of rudeness, but it was oddly refreshing to hear a full-blooded, mocking, confident attack on the Government; it reminded us how little full-blooded, confident mockery we'd heard from the Tories. Mr Howard needs another important job and William Hague must return to the front bench to shadow Mr Brown.

We learnt many interesting things, nonetheless. Forty per cent of the Government's first targets were missed; in their second tranche of targets, 75 per cent were missed. Productivity growth has halved, half a million manufacturing jobs had gone and the stock market has fallen far more in Britain than anywhere else in the west. And (children look away now) had the Chancellor not put £100bn of liabilities off the balance sheet we'd already have a debt to GDP ratio of over 40 per cent. Yes, now you're really shocked. I better stop before I cause a housing market crash.

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