James Forsyth

It is a definite coup for David Cameron that John McCain saw him as well as Gordon Brown today. It was a significant statement that a President McCain expects to have to deal with both men when in office; he clearly expects Cameron to be PM before 2012. But McCain can help Cameron in policy terms too. Cameron has struggled to come up with an inspiring way to talk about his greenery, it can sound rather too doom and gloomy. McCain offers a solution to this problem. He talks inspiringly about how tackling climate change is going to create jobs not cost them, spur economic growth not constrict it and increase rather than harm America’s competitiveness. If Cameron did this, I suspect that he would find the right far more congenial to his greenery than it currently is.

There’s a fun but revealing story in the FT today about a row within the Cabinet about what kind of cars they should all be driven round in. The split is between those who favour Ministers travelling in the eco-friendly Toyota Prius and those who think it is important that they use a car made in Britain. John Hutton, the business secretary, is in the British camp along with two of Gordon’s closest allies, Ed Balls and Jack Straw. While on the green side of the fence are Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, David Miliband and Hilary Benn—the past and present environment secretaries.  On the one hand, this can be seen as a simple turf war.

Tucked away in today’s YouGov poll is a rather amusing question about who voters think would make the best Chancellor if Alistair Darling were to step down. Perhaps unsurprisingly considering the current anti-political mood, the politicians don’t do particularly well. Sir Alan Sugar tops the list at 21 percent, followed by Sir Philip Green at 11 percent with Gordon Brown coming in third. Rather embarrassingly for Ed Balls, who is said to covet the job, he comes in dead last behind both Jack Straw and Delia Smith. Although to be fair to Balls, he does beat Green and Smith among Labour voters.

Some cabinet ministers are not fully reconciled to the Brown era if a few lines of verse supposedly written by a cabinet minister that have been doing the rounds in recent days are anything to go by. “At Downing Street upon the stair,   I met a man who wasn’t Blair,  He wasn’t Blair again today,  Oh how I wish he’d go away.

Last week, The Spectator called on the House of Lords to apply the Salisbury convention in reverse to the Lisbon treaty and use its power to force the government to honour its manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the treaty formerly know as the Constitution. This morning, Lord Strathcylde, the Tory leader in the Lords, endorsed the idea on the Today programme. The arithmetic in the Lords is tricky but it would make an important statement if the Lords was to at least make the government sweat a little on this issue. As our editorial argued, Labour has been fundamentally disingenuous about the reason why it supported a referendum in the first place and it is imperative that its mendacity receives maximum exposure.

Here is a selection of our Budget coverage, do check back tomorrow for more analysis and if you want to read our thoughts as they unfolded through the day just keep scrolling.    Matthew Elliott and Corin Taylor explain why the Budget will just make things worse  Matthew d’Ancona reveals the private Tory response to the Budget Fraser Nelson calculates the true extent of the national debt Andrew Neil eviscerates those binge borrowers, Brown and Darling  Peter Hoskin points out how squeezed the middle classes already are And Fraser Nelson explains how Darling’s tax changes have made a half of cider more expensive than a line of cocaine.