Handbags at 9.55am

As for The Andrew Marr Show, well, let's get the important stuff out of the way first...

In the run-up to the Budget, this morning's The Andrew Marr Show featured John McDonnell and George Osborne - as seems to be something of a BBC/political class tradition. 

According to the Huffington Post, another tradition is that the Chancellor and the Shadow Chancellor then share a sofa at the end of the programme. 

Stop the presses! George Osborne apparently refused to share a sofa today with John McDonnell. 

According to 'a source': 

Clearly Osborne is running scared that John is gonna take him apart and is dreading it. Osborne is like all bullies when he is on his own without his Tory friends cheering - he runs away. And he clearly is scared of John.

Having seen and heard a fair few John McDonnell interviews, I very much doubt he could tear apart a paper bag made out of damp rice paper. So that might not be the reason.

We obviously urgently need an official inquiry to determine the actual reason why Mr Osborne (apparently) refused to share a sofa with Mr McDonnell today. 

Maybe Lord Chilcott could multitask and run this one too. 

His Lordship could also investigate why Mr Osborne was allowed back to talk about driverless cars and HS2 (after Nikki Campbell's plug and the Norwegian chanteuse) while Mr McDonnell was (presumably) banging on the studio door demanding to be let back in.. 

All in all. I think this makes George Osborne sound quite childish, and I'm crossing him off my Christmas card list forthwith.