The office copy of the Collins English Dictionary defines name-dropping as "the practice of referring frequently to famous or fashionable people, esp. as though they were intimate friends, in order to impress others".
Now, far be it from me to impute to the chancellor a desperate desire to impress, but reading his speech tonight, where he name-drops a whopping 34 thinkers, poets, politicians and even priests in the space of half an hour, does make you wonder if he should spend less time in his library, and more time not getting his sums wrong.
Ranging from St John to Bob Geldof, Milton to Robert F Kennedy, John Stuart Mill to an anonymous North American Indian poet ("Native American", surely?) via Hazlitt, Wordsworth, Darwin and Orwell, Mr Brown is certainly well read - or at least has a book of quotations handy. Perhaps David Cameron's new line of attack should be less "roadblock" and more "bookworm"?
