Sometimes, when you’re on a hot streak, you just can’t stop winning.

That’s certainly the case for Oxford West and Abingdon MP Nicola Blackwood.

In May, she scored a surprise victory, with a majority of just 176 votes in a constituency that had been held by the Liberal Democrats for more than a decade and was not high on the Conservative target list.

And this week, Miss Blackwood’s winning ways continued.

At the Oxfordshire Business Awards – a plush black tie dinner held at the Four Pillars Hotel, in Sandford-on-Thames – she bagged a dinner for four at the Oxford Brookes University restaurant staffed by up-and-coming chefs.

The prize was part of a £10-a-ticket raffle to raise money for two charities, See Saw and the Creation Theatre.

And the MP’s luck was contagious, with two more prizes in the raffle going to business leaders sitting on her table.

It’s odds on that Miss Blackwood will be buying a Lottery ticket this weekend.

And Miss Blackwood’s old sparring partner, former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris, threw his hat back into the ring again this week.

Defeated less than two months ago, and now facing a five-year wait for a shot at winning back his old seat, Dr Harris stole a march on other prospective candidates and launched his campaign on Budget Day.

He issued a statement on the measures, adding: “Today’s Budget clearly reflects many of the tax priorities which won the Liberal Democrats almost seven million votes at the election.”

But, unfortunately for Dr Harris, not quite enough of those votes were cast in Oxford West and Abingdon.

There was one chink of good cheer amid this week’s Budget doom and gloom. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne abolished the previous Government’s proposed 10 per cent hike in the tax on cider.

The decision immediately endeared him to Britain’s cider connoisseurs and orchard owners.

Many, listening from park benches up and down the land, will have raised a bottle to George on hearing the good news.

Mr Osborne said it would help the nation celebrate England’s World Cup success or help us drown our sorrows if Fabio’s boys failed to defeat Slovenia in South Africa yesterday.

But given the rest of his Budget, and the bleak economic picture he painted, there may be far better reasons to turn to the demon drink in the coming months and years as we grapple with the nation’s spiralling deficit.