I have racked my brain, but I cannot recall a previous time when a Government was in trouble on so many fronts.
I am in something of a quandary as to who should take the victor ludorum, the winner of the Games, for being in the most difficulty: Chancellor Rachel Reeves, or the hapless Justice Secretary David Lammy.
The Chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility has already fallen on his sword after much of the Budget was published before Reeves even rose in the Commons.
Meanwhile, another OBR man, Professor David Miles, came to her defence.
Appearing before the Treasury Select Committee, he said Reeves’ comments ahead of announcing her tax and spending plans were “not inconsistent” with the circumstances she faced.
He added that all the pre-Budget briefings had been unhelpful and misguided.
I have often said I think the Chancellor may be economically and fiscally illiterate.
Perhaps she simply didn’t understand what the OBR and her own Treasury officials were telling her.
I am increasingly convinced that she and the Prime Minister were determined to lift the two-child benefit cap, and that raising everyone’s tax bill, by freezing tax-free allowances and tax-band thresholds, was the easiest way to pay for it.
Alastair Stewart: I have racked my brain - I cannot recall a time when we have been in this much trouble
| GB NEWSIt certainly buys peace from the backbenchers, but at a heavy price to working people and to growth in the UK economy, as the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies has also observed.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, David Lammy, confirmed that yet more convicts had been wrongly released.
The inability to organise an alcohol-fuelled festivity in a brewery keeps coming to mind.
He also made the highly contentious announcement that trial by jury would be abolished except for the most serious cases.
Opposition was near universal, led by Labour’s Baroness Helena Kennedy of the Shaws KC, one of the finest lawyers of her generation and someone I have long admired.
Dabbling with rights enshrined in the 1215 Magna Carta is no small matter; one of those dates everyone thinks they know.
It reminds me of the two American tourists who, while looking at the Charter, asked the guide when it had been signed. “1215,” he replied.
One glanced at his watch and said: “Aw gee, we just missed it by about twenty minutes.”
The week ended with the publication of the long-awaited Hughes Inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess in 2018, shortly after the attempted assassination, using the nerve agent Novichok, of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.
GB News’s coverage was exemplary, especially Mark White, who recalled the two hitmen claiming they were only in Salisbury to admire its unique cathedral spire.
Lord Hughes concluded that President Putin was morally responsible for Sturgess’s death.
This reminded me of late 2018, when I hosted a conference for the National Police Wellbeing Service, Operation Kilo.
Kier Pritchard, then Acting Commissioner of Wiltshire Police, addressed the gathering.
He spoke movingly about the impact the incident had on his force, not least on Sgt Nick Bailey, who later stepped down after exposure to the nerve agent.
Amid all the failings of various institutions, we often forget the good police officers do for us day in, day out.
It also reminded me of the BBC drama The Salisbury Poisonings, the three-part series from 2020. Well worth watching, even now.
Issues of protection and monitoring of Skripal were also addressed by Lord Hughes.
It brought to mind that, until his last days, former PM Ted Heath had armed guards outside his home, Arundells, in Salisbury’s Cathedral Close.
They were always very courteous on our frequent visits.