This was a despicable Sheriff of Nottingham budget from Brown, bribing the middle classes and the City at the expense of the poor.

But it makes no sense politically, because the tax on gas guzzlers, will be seen as disproportionately important and a personal affront by those middle classes - even though in financial terms it's almost irrelevant.

There's something of the klutz about Brown. He seems to take a rather smug pride in his canny Scottish nous, but in fact he's politically naive and socially inept. He more or less understands neo-liberal financial theory, and knows how to give it a bit of a populist gloss. But I suspect he doesn't understand politics at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if he calls a snap election on the basis of the ineffable wonderfulness of this budget, and then gets his arse kicked out of the stadium by the Tories.