After all these years, we instinctively know when Gordon Brown is lying: we can see his lips moving. But what about yesterday's Labour Manifesto? Did his mendacity creep in there?

Putting aside for a moment the fact that it's beyond fucking ridiculous for the Labour party to claim "you'll be better off under us" when we've been 'under' them for last thirteen fucking years and still not arrived at anything like Utopia, what have they got to offer now?

One thing they never stop claiming is that they'll make 'hard-working families' - whatever the fuck they are - 'better off'. And sure enough, the Manifesto states:

"The direct tax and benefit measures introduced since 1997 mean that in 2010-11, households will be £1,450 a year better off on average."

Fourteen hundred and fifty quid? 120 quid a month? Nice.

Oh, but wait. Those clever people over at Channel 4's FactCheck have had a look at the Manifesto, including that little cash bonus promise. And guess what? Go on, guess.

Yup - it's bollocks.

Labour's claim cunningly mentions only one type of tax – 'direct' taxes - and not taxes levied directly on individuals. They've 'forgotton' the more obscure ones; you know, like income tax and national fucking insurance.

Analysts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who do perhaps know a little about these things, calculate the figures differently, by also looking at indirect taxes on services such as VAT, fuel duty or stamp duty, and business taxes such as capital gains tax and corporation tax.

As David Phillips, of the IFS, points out:

"Ultimately, all taxes are borne by individuals. The money paid in corporation tax is money that would otherwise have been paid in dividends or invested and then earned as income by other people.."

So, what happens if you actually do the fucking maths properly? You might want to sit down, this may shock you.

Aaaaaannnnnd .... what an e-fucking-normous surprise: as a result of Labour's tax and benefit measures, the average household is in fact 270 quid worse off  than they were in 1997.

FactCheck are quite diplomatic, really:

"While Labour may have reduced direct taxation, it has shifted the burden on to other areas of the tax system. So by not taking the whole system into account, you come up with a potentially misleading picture"

'potentially misleading'? Oh for fuck's sake, guys, say what you mean.

Labour are lying. Again.

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One of the many, many benefits of EU membership - along with the straight bananas and Baroness Ashcroft - is that a bunch of Eurocrats get to stick their dirty foreign noses into our financial affairs.

Even though we are not - praise the Lord - users of the Euro, the UK still has to observe EU 'stability rules' regarding public finances.

And guess what? In spite of his fucking endless lies and boasts to the contrary, Gordon Brown - with his little puppet Alistair Darling - has broken those rules. The EU is not happy about that.

Clearly no-one in Brussels has been listening to Broon's blustering: they've just looked at the figures and concluded that Britain must do more to curb its spiralling debt.

The report states:

"The fiscal strategy in the convergence programme is not sufficiently ambitious and needs to be significantly reinforced.

"A credible timeframe for restoring public finances to a sustainable position requires additional fiscal tightening measures beyond those currently planned.”

Which, translated into normal-speak, means: 'You're still pissing far too much money up the wall. Stop it.'

Gosh, really? But Gordon told us all that he was saving us. That he was the only one who knew what to do. That the eeevil Tory's pledge to cut the deficit faster would 'put the fragile economic recovery at risk'. Was that all bollocks then? Who'd have thought?

The timing is good, or if you're Broon or Darling, terrible. We'll find out on Thursday whether Darling's prediction in December that we'd be 'only' 178 billion in the red by now were right, or - more likely - woefully inaccurate.

And we've got a budget, the last budget before the election, next week.

How will the Chancellor balance the EU's demands for a more 'ambitious' strategy and 'additional fiscal tightening' with Gordo's inevitable bullying demands to hand a series of massive and fucking obvious bribes to voters?

Careful, Darling.

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