ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: Who said ‘Everybody likes flattery; and when you come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel’? Is there a question to which you want to know the answer?

SHAGGY DOGS: TO LAY it on with a trowelis to be especially generous with your flattery and praise. The expression is thought to have been invented by the two-times British prime minister, Benjamin ...

A certain nervousness in the upper reaches of the coalition is easily detectable ahead of the budget. It is one thing to make speeches, but quite another to actually swing the axe.