Conservative Home readers who snivel and whine about living outside London and so missing out on everything should be grateful to The Spectator for sponsoring the Intelligence Squared debates. I don't know quite what the deal is but the upshot means The Spectator run tape recordings of these lively debates on their website .
In the last, one former Chancellor Lord Lamont mentioned in the debate that he felt the Lisbon Treaty had been made very boring as a deliberate ruse:
"The Belgian Foreign Minister said the aim of this Treaty is that it should be unreadable and he has succeeded in that. There has been skulduggery of the highest order."
I was reminded of this by Alistair Darling's very boring Budget speech. He is borrowing £43 billion next year as a result of tax and spending spiralling alarming out of control. But he attempted to keep the nation calm and reassured by sending us to sleep, literally in the case of his predecessor Lord Howe watching from gallery above. This is a clever tactic from both the Eurocrats and New Labour and will be a challenge for us to confront.
