I certainly hope so. When he stepped up to the Dispatch-Box in 1997 to deliver his first Budget, there was a sense of the new.

This continued for the next few years even though Brown stuck to the Tory spending plans. To liven up proceedings bets were taken, for example, on how many times he would use the word "prudence" in his speech. She packed her bags a long time ago as we Budget-watchers came to learn that next to nothing Brown said could be taken at face value. Old proposals would be dressed up as new ones, fast and loose was played with statistics, and worst of all stealth taxes inhabited the small print.

You will have seen from Thursday's Daily Express how mean in fact was the Chancellor's sham income tax and corporation tax giveaways.

Experience teaches me that it could be days perhaps weeks until accountants and economists have sufficiently analysed the Budget's small print before we can be certain that all the jiggery-pokery has been uncovered.

No, I for one, will not be nostalgic for the gravelly tones and forked tongue of the member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath when the next Budget comes around.