So that was the budget...
Well, that was the Budget.
Wiser heads than mine will analyse the politics and the economics - but it was a pretty entertaining piece of political theatre. Alistair Darling tends to be underestimated as a Commons performer, because his style is so low key. But in his unobtrusive way, he slipped a number of daggers between Conservative ribs, and cheered his own backbenchers, which is no trivial matter after Monday's depressing "Lobbygate" revelations.
The barb about new deals for exchanging tax information with a number of countries, including "Dominica, Grenada and...[pregnant pause]...Belize" delighted his own side. It was all the more effective because the Conservatives could see the blow about to fall.
All partisan party stuff, of course, but Labour MPs will be able to march towards the sound of electoral gunfire with a story to tell the voters. And the cheer they gave at the end of the Chancellor's speech was ear-splitting. Despite what appeared to be a colour coordination directive which saw most of the Cabinet sporting purple ties, they could have done better on the background visuals.
Gordon Brown, ... and at times his face simply sagged. He perked up in anticipation of a couple of lines, notably the Ashcroft/Belize joke, but otherwise lapsed into a series of rather sour grimaces. A couple of other cabinet ministers looked miserable, and occasional wide shots seemed to show the Communities Secretary John Denham quietly scoffing something as he sat at the far end of the government front bench. Perhaps he thought he was out of sight.
Answering the Budget Statement is probably the single most difficult Commons responsibility for the Leader of the Opposition. A vast, complicated package is thrown at him, and he has to unravel it and come up with a coherent economic and political analysis within a matter of moments.
(A few minutes grace are offered by the requirement to immediately vote through the orders putting tax changes into effect, which meant the Deputy Speaker Sir Alan Haselhurst was on his feet reading them out and calling a vote).
Behind the scenes a team of Tory experts and policy wonks will have been working out the inner meaning of the endless statistics hurled out by the Chancellor, and deconstructing the myriad tax changes he announced. Notes would then be passed to the Tory front bench, reaching Mr Cameron via Phillip Hammond, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor. Every now and then, when the TV cameras offered a shot from behind the Chancellor, you could see the notes being scribbled and muttered comments being exchanged.
And the flow of information will not have stopped when Mr Cameron rose to respond. Every now and then a new factoid or line to take will have been fed to him, to stir into his speech.
So this was quite a rhetorical test - and the Tory leader passed it, delivering a barnstorming response, with some effective canned soundbites: "Five more years of falling confidence, five more years of bloat and debt and taxes, five more years of Britain closed for business." He had a nice lash at the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne, who he called "Baldemort," and he offered a quick turnaround response to the figures in the government's public borrowing projections.
Poor Nick Clegg had to give his "a plague on both your houses" response as a couple of hundred MPs left the chamber. It always happens - after two hours or so of partisan brickbats, many of them feel an irresistible urge to get out of the chamber and have a cup of tea, or something stronger. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought the interest level in the Lib Dem response was a little higher this year. With the opinion polls so close, maybe some MPs had reason to listen more carefully to the Lib Dems' views.
But after Clegg, the exodus. Leaving savants like John McFall, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, former Cabinet Ministers Peter Lilley and John Redwood and others, to opine to empty benches. And the Budget debate continues until Tuesday.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
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