After all, he has been handed a hideous legacy by his boss and predecessor at the Treasury, Gordon Brown. Most of his previous blunders and u-turns have been attempts to sort out problems created by Brown.

But Mr Darling has this week displayed staggering incompetence in his approach to the housing market. The property sector is absolutely vital to economic confidence and yet in his bid to shore it up blundering Mr Darling has caused havoc with it, leaving it in a worse state than ever.

By floating the idea of a stamp duty holiday, but refusing to confirm it, Darling has injected massive uncertainty into an already stagnant market. Prospective buyers will now sit on their hands until the Chancellor makes clear what his stamp duty proposals are. Yet he does not propose to do so until the late autumn.

So, instead of reviving the volume of sales as was his intent, Darling has actually stifled it even further. Barely a house will be sold for the rest of the summer because stamp duty is such a massive component of the costs of moving and the prospect of avoiding it will be compelling. Buyers will pull out, deals will fall through, family plans will be left in shreds.

That is incompetence of a very high order - sufficient to shatter any last vestiges of credibility Darling had left in the kitty.

Waffling about changing the tax regime applied to the housing market without any firm proposals is perhaps the 21st century equivalent of publicly pondering devaluing the currency - a total no-no for a finance minister.

After u-turning on everything from inheritance tax and the Treasury's fiscal rules to the 10p tax rate and capital gains tax AND throwing shed loads of public money at Northern Rock, Darling was already looking hugely accident prone.

But his absurd intervention into the housing market is a bigger sin than all of these. Messing up the biggest financial asset of most British families in this way is unforgivable.

The present uncertainty is simply unsustainable. Mark my words, the Treasury will have to issue a "clarification" on stamp duty before the end of this month, never mind about October or November.

When it does Darling will cut an even more ridiculous figure than he does now. By all accounts he is a decent and honourable man. He must know he has committed a political hanging offence. He should therefore hand in his resignation immediately.