Teachers know it.”There is content, or meta-content, discernible there, and while she is marked down for this, Estelle is certainly worth watching (indeed she won a prize for just that in the parliamentary awards just this week).Second: The cunning conflation of unrelated statistics.Labour’s Paul Flynn asked if the impact of anti-smoking programmes in schools over the last 10 years would be assessed. Jacqui Smith rose to describe the materials used to warn of the dangers of smoking, and quoted a survey showing smoking in the 11-15 age group had fallen from 13 per cent to 9 per cent.Mr Flynn then observed that the very programme intended to decrease smoking among young people “actually coincided with the largest increase of smoking among young women there had ever been”.The scale of the junior minister’s evasion was quite brutally laid bare You don’t normally expect that from your own backbench. Well done, Mr Flynn, you must be loved in Newport West, at least.Third: The blank stare.Tory James Clappison asked: “When it comes to the important stage-two age group, can the minister say whether or not class sizes are higher or lower than they were in 1979?”Jacqui Smith approached the box with great certainty and declared firmly: “The answer to that question is yes!” And then she sat down. Very impressive.Fourth: Simply saying anything you like (it’s important to be Gordon Brown to do this properly).In select committee, Michael Spicer asked Mr Brown to confirm that the budget tables showed productivity falling.

“What you have to understand is that productivity has to rise,” Mr Brown corrected Sir Michael. Ah! The fool that I am! Forgive me, chancellor!What about David Ruffley’s question about the tax burden, which has risen so much? “The tax burden is falling,” the chancellor said pleasantly.But your own figures show that tax rose last year, this year and will do next year! Look at your table B8 on page 175! Mr Brown didn’t want to look at that table. He wanted to look at a different table.But your own figures show tax is rising! “The tax burden is falling.”"Is falling?” As Bill Clinton said: “It depends what the meaning of the word `is’ is.”No, if you want to skewer Gordon Brown, you really need Theresa May’s shoes.
More from Simon Carr. It is becoming a testy, ill-tempered autumn.

There has been no sudden collapse of confidence, as many had feared. But the euphoria of the first quarter of the year, when both global growth and world financial markets hit a peak, gradually evaporated through the summer. During the past couple of months the sense of unease has gradually become more apparent It is at the moment nothing special, nothing untoward But it is different

It is becoming a testy, ill-tempered autumn. There has been no sudden collapse of confidence, as many had feared. But the euphoria of the first quarter of the year, when both global growth and world financial markets hit a peak, gradually evaporated through the summer.

During the past couple of months the sense of unease has gradually become more apparent It is at the moment nothing special, nothing untoward. But it is different.
When a chill wind blows through markets you have to identify what is real and what is froth.The sharpest and most serious shift of mood is in the hi-tech markets – as discussed on this page. This is a global phenomenon; it is universal; and it is serious. While the downgrading was confined to the dot start-ups that was simply eliminating the froth. The heady valuations for the dot s only existed for a matter of months, so while the downgrading has been dismal for investors who came in at the wrong time, the fall in prices did not risk becoming systemic – it did not threaten the stability of the system as a whole. The down-grading of giant hi-tech corporations like Cisco Systems is much more serious.