We do try to avoid the obvious jokes round here but, honestly, what can you do? Here we have a once-mighty national institution, now ageing, faded, failing and palpably close to despair. That's Blackpool. And suddenly the Conservative party marches in.

First, David Cameron took his guest star, Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York, on a tour of the seafront. As he observed the general air of tat and decline, Mr Bloomberg might have got an inkling of what was to follow.