Mr King's remarks, however, implied thatheat least is in nohurry to make an early move: he highlighted the squeeze on livingstandards from an inflation rate runningwellahead of earningsgrowth.
The lesson for all politicians and anyone else making statements that could be embarrassing is simple: in this era of access to incredibly good audio and video recorders by everyone that carry a smartphone or tablet, it would probably be wise to be very careful not to make off-the-cuff candid remarks, especially if you are running for president.
Well the talk of the Countess of Wessex' incautious remarks has been an enormous story two weekends running and as we saw just then last Sunday we had an authorised interview in the News of the World while other papers carried a string of embarrassing stories about what Sophie Rhys Jones was reputed to have told the undercover reporter.