THAT was indeed the week that was. The budget in which Gordon Brown sprung his rhetorical trick at the end and a 2p cut in tax that turned out to be no such thing.

Just a modest change to take some money from some poorer people to give it to some better off people (remember this is New Labour).

The 200th anniversary of the British vote to end the slave trade (but not slavery itself).

Let's just remember that without that enormous barbarity there would be no Afro-Americans (black people) in the USA and no West Indians as we know them.

You can debate how many past migrants from Europe to North America were forced there - by the Irish potato famine, the Highland Clearances, the persecution of Jews among many other acts of barbarism - but only the Africans were captured and sold and transported in shackles.

On an altogether happier note we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the European Union.

But in celebrating this, as we should do for it's been a great success in spite of the hostile British press, let's also mark the failure of this country to get in at the beginning.

A lot of things might have been different - for the better - if we joined at the very start.

But 50 years ago only the then small but far-sighted Liberal Party under Jo Grimond was saying that.

There was another event last week of which much had been expected - the publication of the Lyons Report.

The what, you ask? And you may well.

It's the size of a phone book and twice as heavy, and it's the final report of the Inquiry into Local Government by Sir Michael Lyons.

If that doesn't make you want to rush out for a copy, it gets worse - the subtitle reads "Place-shaping: a shared ambition for the future of local government."

In spite of that particular piece of silly New Labour Speak, government ministers have already dissed some of the main recommendations.

This 400-page tome was originally supposed to come up with the answer to the council tax.

Sir Michael has completely failed and even his modest proposals to make this ever more hated tax a bit less unfair are not likely to happen.

People in the future may look back on this week for some historic events.

But sadly the Lyons Report won't be one of them.