FOR Gordon Brown's euro statement I took a seat in the Press Gallery directly above the Government front bench. The view of the whole chamber was not as good as in my usual spot, above the speaker's chair. But I didn't have the energy to climb the steps after spending the day dragging around the Chancellor's huge box of background papers on the single European currency.
The advantage of my new position was that I had a bird's-eye view of the Cabinet, as they twitched and fidgeted their way through Mr Brown's complicated analysis. After a couple of minutes, this got boring. Almost as boring, in fact, as the Chancellor's speech. My eyes - along with everybody else's at Westminster - glazed over, so I took to watching David Blunkett's new guide dog Sadie.
It was fascinating, an analogy of the day. As Mr Brown droned on and on, delivering possibly the dullest speech of his life, she fell asleep.
She didn't so much as twitch - despite the fact Jack Straw's boot was hovering about an inch from her head - for the whole 32-minutes Mr Brown was on his feet.
Certainly, there was no noise from the Labour benches to wake her. MPs, who were a mixture of baffled and disappointed, didn't make a sound as Mr Brown decided he had not yet decided whether to to hold a referendum to scrap the pound. But then, with a start, she leapt up. Tory Shadow Chancellor Michael Howard had got to his feet and finally given her something worth listening to.
I'm not his biggest fan - I find him quite frightening - but he was magnificent.
On Mr Brown's sacred five economic tests, he said: "We all know that they were written on the back of an envelope in the back of a taxi to fix the damage done by the Chancellor's spin doctor in the back of the Red Lion pub. It was a four-pint briefing, which led to a five-point plan that has just given us a six-year runaround."
On the rivalry between Tony Blair and his neighbour in Downing Street, we got: "The Prime Minister will pay any price to do down his Chancellor.
"There they sit, united in rivalry, each determined to frustrate the other, to scheme against the other and to do the other down. So there is no clarity in policy and no consistency of purpose, and each of them is the loser.
"Blair goes one way, Brown goes the other way, and bang goes the third way."
At one point he revealed Mr Brown's assessments were based on some rather dubious currency unions - Angola and Mozambique, Burkina Faso and Chad, Vatican City and San Marino, and Tuvalu and Tonga.
Sadie raised her paw and began furiously scratching her right ear.
Was she mistaken? Was Mr Howard - famously knifed by Ann Widdecombe for having "something of the night" to his personality - really slaughtering Mr Brown?
Absolutely.
The Tories whooped and cheered, with Ryedale's John Greenway looking a particularly happy man. Even Iain Duncan Smith was smiling. But, as always, there was a sting in the tail for the Tory leader.
Mr Howard's performance was so impressive, the whispers about him taking over are already starting.
Mr Brown will have better days.
Mr Duncan Smith will again be wondering if his days are numbered.
Poor Sadie will be counting the days until the Chancellor's next euro assessment in March.
Updated: 10:58 Friday, June 13, 2003
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