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And so it continues. The FT reports that Sir Alan Budd has denied that George Osborne cooked the OBR’s job loss forecasts. ‘It was genuinely a forecasting correction with no ministerial interference,’ he said, blandly. The correction was the result of the OBR’s use of a narrow definition of public sector workforce than is employed by other statisticians.

That is not abnormal: statisticians are a law unto themselves. But, as the saying goes, it doesn’t look good. The OBR’s figures supported the government and the story is beginning to emit of a whiff of mendacity. Once more, George Osborne is in a mess of his own making. His political instincts veer from brilliance to catastrophe with an unpredictable regularity. Osborne’s refusal to concede patronage over the OBR was a miscalculation: it politicises the OBR, reinforcing the opposition’s case. Alistair Darling is right: a good idea has been marred.

To rescue the situation, Osborne must appoint someone who is absolutely beyond reproach.