As I listened to Clerical Ali on Radio Four’s Today programme earlier this week, I marvelled once again at the consummate ease with which whoppers simple slip past the lips of those Who Are No More.

On 16th March this year, The Slog ran a Treasury-sourced piece about Darling’s officials despairing of stopping the Brownite attempt at a last-minute spending spree:

‘”Alistair has no protection any more” a Treasury official told The Slog this morning, “and our forecasts are looking sillier and sillier with every day”.

Then six days later, The Slog ran a piece pointing out how Darling was actually using the Treasury officials’ desire for indemnifaction against idiot spending proposals to keep the Dog’s Balls at bay and make Brown see sense. So it ill behoves him now to say that the spending booby-traps left all over the place are dreamed-up Tory spin.

The Slog’s safe and reliable Treasury source wishes me to let you all know that the senior officials put all their concerns in writing right up until three days before the election; and these show both clearly and with tedious repetition that the Alistair Darling Radio Four defence is utter bollocks.

The source also asks that I remind Mr Darling of what he’s already been told privately since the broadcast: “Any more of that bollocks Alistair, and we’ll string you up by your bollocks”.