We're used to the Bottler's, the Ditherer's the Fiddler's, that's the word for the day, we are used to the Fiddler's budgetary tricks unravelling fast, but the speed of crumpling under scrutiny of the deal he struck only yesterday with Frank Field is still astonishing.
Here are all the hallmarks of something scrawled down by a desperate man in a desperate hurry on the back of the nearest fag packet (he'll have some chain-smoking aides right now), then on his cuff, then on an old envelope, then on anything that came to hand whilst running around in ever-more erratic confusion.
On The World at One just now there was total uncertainty: will payments be "offset" or "back-dated" and what on earth's the difference; when's it going to happen (cash flow is of some importance for low-income families - telling them they will get some back-dated payment in November or whenever won't help them with bills and debts and interest now); what about the impact of the minimum wage on employers? (somebody helpfully pointed out that the government had decided within the last few months not to increase the minimum wage for people under 25; is this another U turn?); what do "average" losses mean? (surely a concession that there will still be some losers able to show the Fiddler their wage slips). That's even before we get to new forms of tax credit and "using" the winter fuel allowance mechanism.
The best thing is that because he is so incapable of admitting fault, his hapless crew are having to present this deranged complexity as being a more effective way of addressing poverty. Of course! This back-dated Gordian knot is just what people on low incomes have been calling for.
This is the true Brown, unspun and now completely unwound and unravelled. A fiddler on the hoof. For some reason Frank Field blinked yesterday. I bet he's having second thoughts now.
Update at 4.00: Oh, and the Low Wage Commission needs to be persuaded to change the rules on the minimum wage, and it appears the government has no idea how much this is going to cost, or how many people are affected. I would like to think this might mean the end of nonsense about "Conservative unfunded tax cuts", but of course it doesn't.
