Osborne takes Commons on a mission to Mars

Three quarters of the way through his Autumn Statement, George Osborne suddenly started talking about Britain taking a leading role in a future mission to Mars.

The mention passed without explanation and seemed mainly to be an opportunity for a dig at the Labour party - "a red planet with no sign of intelligent life" (do you see what he did there?). Then, from a place with no signs of intelligent life, he segued almost seamlessly to talking about the north of England. A lot of effort goes into these speeches but, even so, I'm sure the link was unintended.

But one can see the appeal of the Mars mission. Things, after all, seem so much smaller from space. Perhaps a better segue might, then, have been to the deficit.

By that point, however, Mr Osborne had already done the deficit. It is still huge; it isn't going to get as small as he hoped this year but, blimey, after the election we will - like a miracle diet - see the pounds positively melt away.

There are three distinct stages to an Osborne budget speech. Stage one is a bludgeoning oratorical preamble in which he sets out why he has been vindicated in all of his approaches; stage two is a longer, duller part in which he tries to gloss over the ways in which that might not exactly be true, spraying out numbers rather as a dog addresses a lamppost. Stage three is the final flourish designed to divert people long enough for normal voters to have switched off before anyone delves too deeply into the hidden detail of stage two.

This was a curious political affair, patently influenced by the imminence of the election, a day of political spoonerisms as both sides tried out the others slogans only to mangle the message. It started with David Cameron at prime minister's questions, fluffing a barb at Ed Balls, accused him of a strategy of "maso-sadism".

The House collapsed as MPs pondered what this might involve and whether it would be a problem if the tabloids caught them indulging in it. Maso-sadism is ill-defined but it does sound like the kind of strategy a Tory chancellor might deploy. Mr Balls' joy was shortlived, however, as in his excitement, he accused Mr Cameron of letting the "bag out of the cat". The shadow chancellor continued to let the bag out of the cat, implausibly donning the garb of a deficit hawk and chastising Mr Osborne over its size after four years of having depicted the chancellor's strategy as going "too far and too fast".

Mr Osborne's misfortune is that his deficit-reduction plan is indeed running five years late on what was supposed to be a five-year schedule. His good fortune is that his political opponents are just about the only people in the country not qualified to criticise him for it.

The chancellor meanwhile was - a little more successfully - trying on a fairness agenda, tackling tax loopholes, pushing more money towards the NHS and even referring to the government's record as "progressive politics in action".

But for all his Labour catchphrases, he was more comfortable and convincing when he returned to what we might term traditional Tory terminology. The savers, the strivers, the aspirational homeowners. (Mr Osborne's speeches are littered with panegyrics to these people: in 2011 he talked of a "march of the makers". We don't know from where they set out but you'd think they would have got here by now. But perhaps they are on the same timetable as the deficit reduction.)

Inheritance tax was swept away from pension pots and Isas, so too air passenger duty for children, and then the final flourish - a sweeping reform of stamp duty which will not only delight all but the very wealthiest homebuyers but attempted to draw the political sting of Labour's mansion tax without actually being beastly to the wealthy.

The plight of people moving house seems very much on the chancellor's mind these days. Both he and his next-door neighbour occupy rather desirable properties in central London and are terribly keen not to have to go looking elsewhere any time soon. You can't blame them. House prices in London are a real shocker.

By the time Mr Osborne sat down Tories had pretty much forgotten the deficit failings altogether. He had, indeed, transported his party to a planet from which you could hardly see it at all.

Mr Balls, in his reply, was more measured than in previous years but by the time he had really ratcheted up his indignation about the true state of the deficit, the chamber was already emptying. In space, no one can hear you scream.

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