The Treasury loses it (updated)

Plenty of people are whiling away recess posting about the future of Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, after a gruelling week. Reports suggest that there has been a whispering campaign to get Ed Balls in the job and tales of tension between No 10 and No 11. Right now, no serious evidence can be offered up one way or the other.

But there is some trivial evidence. According to loose talk in pubs, last week saw the Treasury quiz night won by a team from No 10. Bounding on to the stage, one of Gordon Brown's advisers (who followed their master from the Treasury) grabbed the microphone and scolded the audience: "You've lost our fiscal rules, you've lost our fiscal rules", a reference to Gordo's limits on spending on saving and borrowing that were breached last week after Northern Rock.

Technicalities aside, Red Box is sure that you can negotiate the many layers of irony involved here.

In the world of grown-up politics, Philip Webster reports this morning: "Alistair Darling appeared last night to be bowing to growing pressure to rethink his plan to increase taxation on non-domiciled foreigners living in Britain. The Times understands they are considering introducing provisions to assure non-doms that the Treasury's aim was not to pry into their worldwide tax affairs, but only to tax the earnings they bring to Britain."