Britain has been in some tough recessionary scrapes before. As the pundits keep telling us.

But how valuable is it for politicians - and the country - to be constantly looking over their collective shoulders at economic crises gone by?

We've certainly seen a fair amount of head-scratching about history in recent months. When Alistair Darling and other members of the government have opened their mouths to make comparisons with the 1930s, or the 1970s, the media has jumped on their predictions and comparisons with excitement. The furore over Gordon Brown's accidental 'depression' slip in prime minister's questions just about sums it up. The question is: do these comparisons really matter?

They're helpful, of course, to those seeking to understand the current context. But they're not much more than coded messages used for political effect.

This is partly why it's very difficult for the unemployed man on the street to assess the state of the nation's finances. Newspaper headlines tend to

It's tough being Britain's third party. The problem of never realistically expecting to attain power is that any big policy shifts can be seen as an attempt to win votes with headline-grabbing figures. A £700 cut in income tax might be seen as one such attempt.

Yet "with Vince Cable in the Treasury", as party leader Nick Clegg ambitiously put it today, that is exactly what we would see. The Lib Dems have finally abandoned the 4p cut in income tax introduced under Menzies Campbell's disappointing stop-gap reign.

Instead of that rather mechanical policy the party has come up with something a little more flexible. Raising the personal allowance to £10,000 will mean all those on the standard personal allowance - earning up to £100,000 - will see an increase of £3,525 in 2009. That gives an effective tax cut of £705 to anyone earning over £10,000.

Marvellous news. Paying for it, of course, is rather more difficult. And how many people would be left, overall, struggling to recover the full

It's only been a matter of time before Jacqui Smith came face to face with the resignation question.

She's never been particularly likeable, although, to be fair, no-one is charismatic enough to appear likeable while selling the inane and vindictive policies emanating from the Home Office recently. The expenses scandal serious damaged her both in terms of her crude claim for a second home allowance and the renting of questionable movies using public money.

But the final nail on the coffin, according to the growing media consensus, is the Damian Green affair. This is an unfortunate angle for newspapers to take. We're in danger of overlooking the real problems through an unhelpful concentration on personality. Jacqui Smith is not the problem. The British government is the problem.

The decision to pursue Green on the basis of national security typifies what has happened to the Home Office since September 11th. Two phrases have become widespread, spreading disinformation and covering up a

This year's Budget is a curious thing. Massively overshadowed by the Pre-Budget Report and, much later, the G20 summit, analysts have only really remembered that it's happening over the last couple of days.

It's difficult to predict. On the one hand, it should by all rights be a neutral Budget. The handouts have already been given, and the government is likely to put off tax increases for as long as possible. That, by the way, will probably be 2011. Only the very brave raise taxes with a general election staring them in the face, and Labour will have to go to the polls next May at the latest.

But for many onlookers, it appears as if spending is now part of the government's DNA. Certainly any plans for another radical fiscal stimulus package were neutered by the odd, and faintly unholy, unspoken alliance of Alistair Darling, Mervyn King, George Osborne and Angela Merkel - much against Gordon Brown's wishes. But most people think there probably will be spending of a sort. The early news

Things have never been this bad for the Met. Wherever you turn, there's an example of the police completely failing in their duty.

Last night another video of police brutality at this month's G20 protests was made public. It matches the punishment handed out to Ian Tomlinson - who later died - in terms of ferocity and its unprovoked nature. As in the Tomlinson video, the officer appeared to have covered up his identity number.

In the case of the Tomlinson death, the video of the attack followed Met statements saying he had not come into contact with police, and vastly exaggerating the hostility of protestors when police tried to help him.

Last week, Britain's top counterterrorism policeman was forced to resign after he left a car to enter Downing Street with details of a top secret operation against terrorist suspects clearly visible in his hands. Bob Quick earned much praise for the speedy and honourable manner in which he fell on his sword, but not enough to make the resignation

Never write off Brown. It's a bad idea. He has a way of surprising you. Many political journalists wrote him off before he entered Number 10, as an uncharismatic economist who would bore the nation into the ballot box.

But his honeymoon period was longer and sweeter than most had anticipated. Once he bottled plans for an early election, it appeared there was no limit to how far he could fall, and analysts began to describe his fate in almost poetic language. But then the Brown bounce which followed the financial collapse made many of us eat our words.

And yet the scandal surrounding the lurid emails sent by Damian McBride, the PM's special advisor, has the tinge of fate about it again - a sense he may not be able to recover from this one.

On the face of it, this should be a minor scandal. McBride is barely known outside of the Westminster bubble. When he was demoted from communications boss in the last reshuffle, only a few analysts bothered to mention it. But the echoes of John

Assistant commissioner Bob Quick's decision to resign this morning took a few of the less-seasoned political commentators by surprise. It was, true to his name, very quick. Barely had the scandal occurred, than the culprit took responsibility and fell on his sword. We're not used to this.

There used to be a rule in Tony Blair's government: if the scandal goes on for more than five days, you've got to go. It was for this reason that Blair's announcement of absolute faith in the minister in question usually preceded their forced resignation. The expression of faith came on day three, the resignation on day five. After a few years, Blair's faith in you was like a mafia boss kissing both your cheeks before leaving the room: it meant you were wearing your death mask.

Quick's resignation breaks all the rules. The photograph of him carrying secret documents was taken yesterday afternoon. The arrests across the north-west occurred hours later. The scandal hit the evening news. By the time

We still don't know what happened to Ian Tomlinson and we need to be careful not to jump to conclusions.

Last Wednesday, he died of a heart attack, and video released today shows he was struck by police minutes before that happened. Everyone has presumed the same thing - that those two events are connected, but that is not necessarily so. We now must wait for the IPCC-managed City of London police report, and then, in all likelihood, for the criminal investigation which follows it.

But at this early stage we can conclude one thing - the video released today speaks volumes about the systemic problems in the modern British policing of protests.

As I wrote in my eyewitness report on the day, most of the individual police officers that day behaved appropriately. They are, of course, as different as the general public - most of them charming and friendly, a few of them quite the opposite. But on an operational basis, the conduct of the police force made the events shown in the video