It can't be easy replying to a budget speech. The Chancellor has months to prepare for it, and then as soon as he has finished you have to get up off your arse and try to deliver a killer blow. Most Leaders of the Opposition, quite understandably, struggle. Today, David Cameron gave the most vacuous and banal reply to a budget speech in living memory. It was truly pathetic. Full of barely discernible jokes, such as calling Brown an "analogue politician in a digital age" (I mean, come on, if you're going to do 'jokes', try to make them vaguely amusing) the reply contained barely a word about the things the Chancellor had just been speaking about. All this on top of what must have been the most ineffective PMQ's Cameron has had to date must surely have set senior Tories wishing they could turn the clock back a few months. I haven't witnessed a more trite and ineffective response to a budget speech since.... well, a couple of weeks at least, when Sandwell's own failing Tory Leader floundered around trying to read her budget reply speech that Central Office had written for her!