On the VAT reversal: "We were trying to score a point against the Conservatives, if you like. Okay, well that was in the election. We have now moved past the election."

I don't find myself refreshed by the Sage of Twickenham's honesty about his dishonesty, any more than I'm charmed by any of his fatuous nicknames - aside from the 'Sage' tag, he is garlanded with 'Dr Doom' and 'the Prophet Elijah', the harbinger of judgment. For all his lamentations about the moral cesspit of the City, he consistently shows himself to have the mindset not of a prophet, but of a spiv, an opportunistic trader for whom any lie is good enough. Lacking talent or charisma, he makes a small electoral killing by misrepresenting his wares, banks the votes and splits.

Two of the last, pathetic, arguments mounted in the Liberals' defence is that they are if nothing else humanising Tory policy, and are, at any rate, honest brokers. Cable and Clegg are thankfully determined, in their exultant glee at finally being among the big boys, to trash those illusions. The only sense in which the Liberals have helped to humanise Tory policy is by lending their weak saffron brand of 'social justice' to the sales literature, and that is losing traction rapidly. And honest brokers? They've made their bona fides clear: they are at their most direct and brazen with us when admitting they've been lying to us.