Hunt Balls

Even with the distraction provided by the charity tax U-turn, Jeremy Hunt's performance has given the nation plenty of much-needed hilarity.

You can be, as Labour Governments especially have sometimes been in the past, well-meaning but incompetent. You can be, as Conservative Governments especially have usually been in the past, nasty but efficient. You cannot, however, be both nasty and incompetent.

Oh, and note that Telegraph Blogs has today been doing a passable impersonation of a competitor, rather than a wholly owned subsidiary, of News International. Are Sir David and Sir Frederick in the office this week? If so, then they should come in more often.

And Labour should take note: as also on the Mail titles, the combination of patriotism in all directions, including towards the Murdochs, with at least an openness towards socially and culturally conservative insights, and with support for the government action necessary to maintain the middle class, the countryside, the domestic manufacturing base, the traditional family, and so on, is the way to pick up newspaper endorsements and millions of votes that are both now ripe for the picking.