But it’s not only in cold, hard economic terms where Vince’s numbers add up to the winning total. With proper nouns now being allowed in Scrabble he manages to take top prize there too.

‘Vince Cable’ will score you a tidy 19 (without any double or triple letter or word bonuses). ‘Alistair Darling’ and ‘George Osborne’ – despite both containing more letters – will only net you a miserly 17 apiece. And if you use the full ‘Vincent’ you’ll get another couple of points on top. A bonus we can all be happy with.

If you don’t believe us, you can check our sums on the scrabble score calculator.

“Ah, yes,” mutter the smartarses, “but ‘Vincent’ is Cable’s middle name. His real first name is John.”

OK, OK. In the interests of fair play we’ll use the candidates’ proper full names. John Vincent Cable, Alistair Maclean Darling and Gideon Oliver Osborne (stop sniggering at the back…)

The scores on the doors? Cable, 35. Darling 28. Osborne, 26.

This is starting to look like an opinion poll, isn’t it?