Last year Gordon Brown didn't say he was effectively doubling income tax for 5 million low paid workers. Instead, he announced: "I can now return income tax to just two rates by removing the 10p band on non savings income." He also claimed it was a budget to expand prosperity and fairness. The FSA should go after him for mis-selling.
One woman I met this week is typical; she doesn't qualify for tax credits, and she's frightened about the future. Now those same Labour MPs who supported the budget are frightened too, and with byelections looming the government has backed down. As one wag put it, not so much a tax cut as a Crewe-cut....
We still don't know what the cost of borrowing £2.7bn for this bailout will be. Only £630m will go to the people who lost out when the10p rate was abolished.
We don't know how long these tax allowances will last. And that still leaves over 1 million low earners who are still losing out.
Some voters may be bought off. But many will find it hard to forgive Labour for hiking up taxes on the poor in the first place.
It's not just byelection campaigners who are pounding the streets in the sun. My redoubtable parents have gone straight from helping with the London elections to organising Christian Aid Week collections in their neighbourhood.
Christian Aid is one of the groups supporting the work of the Disaster Emergency Committee, so this year it's timelier than ever.
The news from both China and Burma is grim. But while China is keen to show itself as open to international help, Burma's military leaders are still refusing to allow in foreign aid. Like the French government, the Liberal Democrats are calling for intervention by air - to drop aid not bombs - while the Labour government holds back. What a contrast to Iraq.
Aung San Suu Kyi is calling for international action "including air drops of relief supplies" if necessary. But is the government listening?
Mayor Boris continues to entertain us. Last week he announced a crackdown on petty crime "I firmly believe that if we drive out so-called minor crime then we will be able to get a firm grip on more serious crime"; this week he's been caught cycling through red lights and on the pavement).
His alcohol ban on the tube was rubbished by Bob Crow of the RMT; but in a surprise show of solidarity, BoCrow then followed BoJo's lead by insulting the people of Liverpool: what an inspiring partnership for London....
Boris is abolishing Ken's propaganda sheet (after all, he has the Evening Standard on side) and planting more trees instead. New leaders like to slash their predecessor's PR machine, before setting up their own; I predict that a new mayoral publication will hit the streets well before all those trees are in leaf. It's canapé politics; tasty tidbits to keep us distracted from the absence, as yet, of any main dish.
