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Maybe Alistair Darling is a political genius after all. Faced with delivering a budget which would be either criticised for penalising the public with tax rises or attacked for not cutting the national deficit fast enough, the man with the dancing eyebrows always seemed to be on a hiding to nothing.

So the fact that the first thing anyone on the street will tell you about the budget is that there's a whopping increase in the price of a pint of cider probably counts as quite a clever victory.

What's even more surprising is the apparent inability of the Conservative Party to get the pubic wound up about the state of the economy.

This should be perfect election-winning territory for them, yet they seem to only be succeeding in getting annoyed that the public aren't listening.

Sat on a Metrolink tram as it trundled between Bury and Manchester today (why doesn't Liverpool get one of those?), I found myself wondering how much of an impact the Lord Ashcroft non-dom revelations will have had.

The answer, uncomfortably for those who have devoted so much time on air and space in print to the story, is not a lot. Will people be talking about it down the pubs tonight? Probably not.

But does it have the potential to damage the Tories at the election? I think so, especially in key marginals such as Bury North, through which my tram travelled today.

Lord Ashcroft, as we know, has pumped millions of pounds into the Tory Party in recent years. Despite claims by the Tories that his donations only equate to 5% of total donations, it's still a lot of money.

Speaking today in his latest video webcast, David Cameron says:

Britain has been crying out for a modern alternative to this government that's failed so badly ... We have answered that call.

Now, the first part may be true, but the opinion polls tell one of two stories. They either tell us that the British public want change, but aren't prepared to vote Tory, so are sticking with Labour, or they are telling us that the British public want change, but haven't twigged that the Tories have answered that call.

A CHAP rang up Stephen Nolan on Five Live this morning to congratulate him on his interview with Sir Nicholas Winterton. "Radio Gold, mate," he said. "You should get a Sony, or whatever they are called, for that."

The caller is right, I suspect. Inviting Sir Nicholas - who was the dubious honour of being criticsed for alleged abuse of the allowances system prior to the expenses scandal - to discuss the Falklands and ending up with a row over whether MPs should travel first class is some going.

Sir Nicholas insisted MPs should be allowed to travel first class so they can work in peace. A reasonable enough argument, but only if assume that people who sit in standard can never do any work.

IT'S been a weekend of admissions. There's the admission that health spokesmen from the three main parties met in secret to try and reach consensus on elderly care, only for the Tories to destroy progress for the common good by accusing Labour of dreaming up a 'death tax.'

Gordon Brown on Piers Morgan contained plenty of admissions - and allowed the public to see a side of Brown which many claimed existed, but is rarely seen in public.

And then there's the BNP admitting non-whites now. The best Nick Griffin could come up with was "Well, at least they can't accuse us of being racist anymore." The fact the party's main policies revolve around blaming the country's ills on foreigners suggests that while the admissions policy may have changed, but the racist tone of the party hasn't.

But perhaps the memorable admission of the weekend came from a woman who has made a fortune out of political admissions: Edwina Currie. Almost as sure as eggs are eggs, Edwina pops up on one of the weekend political shows to add her views on something. This weekend it was about policy over personality, and Currie was asked why the much-mocked recent David Cameron poster didn't include any policies.

It would be wrong to even begin to try and imagine what the families of the two children sadistically tortured in Yorkshire have been through during the last 18 months.

The attacks inflicted on a nine-year-old and a 11-year-old boy by two brothers, aged just 10 and 11, are said to be so horrific that it is impossible to report them in a way which wouldn't offend.

For the parents of the two victims of such torture and sexual humiliation, Friday's court verdict - indefinite custodial sentences for the brothers - is only the beginning. Somehow, the parents of the victims have to try and rebuild the shattered lives of their youngsters.

Three days before Tony Blair called the 2005 General Election, I was sat with him in the cabinet office. What do you think we discussed? The war in Iraq? Rising interest rates?

Nope, he was talking about leylandii trees and insisting his government's decision to give councils the power to tell people to chop them down was proof his was a listening government.

I can't profess to a close relationship with Tony Blair. We've only ever met six times and wonderful that it was that on the latter three occasions he always began with 'David, great to see you again' I'm pretty certain that's more to do with the fact he had a good press office around him.

The only reason I was inside the very heart of Number 10 - so close to the sofas on which Blair and his team made all their undocumented decisions - was because the election was about to be called and the paper I worked for then covered several constituencies Labour was keen to keep hold of.

Whether Blair's sudden interest in leylandii trees - an issue among a batch of questions he answered on behalf of readers - ensured Labour kept that seat, we'll never know.

But with less than six months to go until a we have another election, I can't help but suspect current PM Gordon Brown's sudden interest in Everton's aborted move to Kirkby has more to do with votes in Merseyside than it does ensuring the Toffees have a ground fit for the 21st century.

Just days after one of his ministers - John Denham, responsible for the planning inspectorate - kicked out the tie up Tesco in Knowsley, Brown appears to have instructed 'minister for the north west' Phil Woolas to find a way for the plan to happen.

The official reason is that Brown is worried about the impact not having Kirkby would have on England's bid to win the 2018 World Cup.

Now, much as Everton's new stadium looked nice, I can't help but think sorting out the bickering among the 2018 bid team would help swing more FIFA votes. After all, the South African bid team managed to win 2010 despite including pictures of Preston North End's ground.

So what motive does Brown have here? I suspect this is the first of many interventions we suddenly hear of from the prime minister, and I dare say David Cameron will add his weight to a campaign if he feels there are enough votes in it.

Oddly, he appears to have picked on an issue which not even Everton seem particularly keen to pursue, and which still has a lot of local opposition.

But just as in 2005, beware politicians suddenly professing a sudden interest in local issues. The interest tends to wane once your vote has been cast.

What a difference one opinion poll seems to make. A slow news day on Sunday meant The Observer's latest poll, which had the gap between the Tories and Labour down to just eight points, was dismissed by many as just a blip.

Almost a week on, and is it too soon to suggest that the poll has sent the Tories into a bit of a flap?

With the whiff of sleaze returning to the party thanks to Tory MP David Currie's amazing ability to combine expenses scandal with marital affair and a position on the committee meant to be cutting out foul play, and more signs that the economy is improving, Cameron needed something to grab headlines at PMQs this week.

The obvious target would have been bank charges. The Supreme Court bounced the issue of bank charges straight back at the Government, pointing out only ministers could change the law so the Office of Fair Trading could decide whether bank charges were fair.

Ben Bradshaw is the latest Twittering MP to get into trouble.

Here's what he said:

'The camerons got good nhs care thanks to Labour's investment and reform. is this the "big government" he derides?'

The thrust of the Telegraph's story was that Bradshaw was making political hay out of the death of David Cameron's son Ivan earlier this year.

Throughout his speech at the Tory conference last week, Cameron made continual references to "big government", clearly aiming to take the widely held belief that the public sector is bloated and turn it into a bogeyman for Labour in the forthcoming election.

Bradshaw's tweet in response appears to set out to argue that the Camerons wouldn't have received such good treatment on the NHS (the Camerons did praise the doctors and nurses who helped them at the time) had Labour not operated "big government" within the NHS.

That's codswallop. The NHS has improved massively under Labour but it hasn't been money well spent. If someone suffers depression, they might go and see a GP, who is paid for by the local primary care trust. That GP may decide mental health treatment is required, at which point the local mental health trust will get involved. That patient may then have to go and see a shrink, probably paid for by the PCT from the mental health trust and probably housed at the local hospital, run by a separate hospitals trust. All of which is managed by a regional strategic health authority which in turn reports to Government.

The Government, in turn, pays money directly to the PCT to commission services from the mental health trust, NHS hospitals and the private sector, and it'll also pay the GPs. The SHA will try and direct how the PCT should behave, taking government policy forward. That's big government at its worst. Each trust has a chief executive, a board of directors, lots of paper-shufflers, some of whom find their jobs are pretty much entirely about dealing with the other trusts involved.

So Cameron is right. Big government doesn't equal better services. But people aren't criticising Bradshaw for his opinion on the NHS - they're having a go for bringing Ivan into the equation.

Had Bradshaw seized on Cameron's praise for the NHS in looking after his son, then he's be deserving of the criticism.

But Cameron took a calculated call last week to remind us of the death of his son, to tell us the impact it had had on his life, and to say:

But for me and Samantha this year will only ever mean one thing. When such a big part of your life suddenly ends nothing else - nothing outside - matters. It's like the world has stopped turning and the clocks have stopped ticking. And as they slowly start again, weeks later, you ask yourself all over again: do I really want to do this? You think about what you really believe and what sustains you.

There was no obvious reasons for mentioning it, but mention it he did. And at that point, he's opened up his life and is using it to connect with the public. That makes it political.

Just as Tony Blair made his family political when he paraded them on the steps of Number 10 in 1997: Here I am, just like you. Honest.

So was Bradshaw wrong to mention Ivan? In fairness, he didn't. He referenced the Camerons' experience of the NHS.

All he did was reference two parts of the same speech and previous comments made by Cameron.

That to me isn't insensitive, it's making a political point. A political point which deserves to be challenged because it's wrong. Criticising Bradshaw for making the comment is a victory for style over substance - when it's really the substance which needs correcting.

And without Twitter, and that instant comment, we'd perhaps not have realised just how wedded to a bloated public sector Labour really is.

This champagne issue just won't go away for the Tories, despite their best attempts to hustle Daily Mirror-hired waiters away from George Osborne.

On the front page of the Manchester Evening News today is the story of Phillip Whittington, a 27-year-old conference delegate who was arrested inside the Midland Hotel for failing to pay the bill for a £150 bottle of champagne.

Mr Whittington is keen to stress he's done nothing wrong, and was more than happy to pay for the plonk.