The Sketch: Trust their word, but beware which one

In Work and Pensions yesterday, for instance, they made much of the large reduction of people living in poverty. The figures have improved enormously, particularly when they excluded housing costs from the calculation. No wonder ministers have taken to excluding their own housing costs from official declarations.

Or what about the under-minister's assertion that no one can be forced to repay money overpaid to them through "official error"? Citizens who like to think the best of politicians should remember that they make a distinction between "official error" and "error by officials" (the former requires repayments, the latter doesn't).

And what about people who took the Government at its word on pensions and now face destitution in their old age? Those who lost a million - can't they be given a peerage in recompense? At the going rate? Or would 80,000 new peers be a reform too far?

The "roulement" statement told us troops in Iraq were to be reduced by about 10 per cent. In John Reid's words, civil war was "was neither imminent nor inevitable". But, as Michael Moore pointed out, the situation was very finely balanced so was this the moment to be withdrawing troops?

The minister reiterated that it was all a matter for the Iraqi people and that we would only leave Iraq when the conditions had been met and that the Iraqis themselves would make the assessment when that had happened. Assessments would start in April, he said. Expect the assessments to be a) positive and b) withdrawals announced in May.

It was always going to be hard to get the subject of John Reid's mortgage into a sketch on troop reductions so many thanks to Harry Cohen's low blow. Mr Reid, it was reported, benefits from an offshore account which paid off the £1.5m mortgage on his Westminster house. Mr Cohen talked about the Americans' characterisation of Iraqis as "subhuman" and referred to the death squads run by the Interior Ministry. "If very large mortgages can be paid off quickly, we must be able to get the troops out of Iraq," he said.

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