IT may come as a surprise, but muppet is not a word often heard on the floor of the Commons.

However, yesterday the Conservatives decided, rather bravely, to employ it, believing they had one up on Labour leader Ed Miliband.

A poll earlier in the week revealed that the public often confused the opposition politician with, er, Bert from Sesame Street. Not Downing Street, the Tories chortled, to what can only be described as polite titters, even from their own side.

Labour had the last laugh, however, among all this muppetry.

During the long-awaited spending review to unveil an extra £11.5 billion of cuts, Labour's Ed Balls reminded the Chancellor George Osborne of his own recent case of mistaken identity – when Barack Obama confused him with the singer Jeffrey Osborne.

Labour's shadow chancellor was also clearly determined not to make the mistake he had after the Budget.

Then, his hesitant delivery led to accusations linked to rather schoolboyish references to his surname.

This time, he boomed into the chamber: "His friends call him George, to the president he is Jeffrey but to everyone else he is just Bungle."

The joke was so good it even the Prime Minister grimaced. This was a mistake.

Mr Balls bellowed: "Even Zippy on the frontbench cannot stop smiling." But Mr Balls was just warming up.

The Chancellor spent much of his statement bullishly castigating Labour as the harbingers of a doom he said had yet to appear.

The truth is that the speech was one Mr Osborne never wanted to give. His initial plan had been to cut the Budget deficit by the end of this parliament. Then there would have been no need for further spending reductions.

However, he had not, and Mr Balls was not prepared to let him forget it.

"Failed", he barked at the Chancellor, "failure". Nearby, the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith spent most of the Chnacellor's statement absent-mindedly resting his hands on the nearest object.

Unfortunately that happened to be the handle of the wheelchair of the formidable Work and Pensions Committee chairwoman – and noted critic of one IDS – Dame Anne Begg.

What she said to him was not recorded, alas, but it was apparent that it did not fall into the general thrust of the Coalition mantra that we are "all in this together".