More on X factor

Tenuous link between previous blogs coming up. At topical Treasury questions today we had a classic example of 'here's one I prepared earlier'.

Karen Buck, taking a break from wanting to be mean to George Osborne (see previous post) asked the Chancellor if he would be prepared to consider waiving the VAT on the 'Heroes' record being released by the X Factor finalists.

The Chancellor had, by pure chance, just been pondering that very point and announced to cheers that yes, he would. (Or rather, still collecting the VAT but paying an equivalent amount into the same charitable fund as that's how these things work).

I seem to remember there was rather a big row about VAT when Band Aid released their single, but can't remember how it was resolved.

So who do you think Alistair would vote for? (I seem to remember Gordon saying something nice about those two Scottish brothers last year, or was it the year before? The ones who couldn't sing anything, except that Proclaimers song.) In the spirit of investigative journalism I will endeavour to find out.