Last week David Cameron was ambushed by Ed Miliband at Prime Minister's Questions when he wanted to talk about falling unemployment.
This week the Prime Minister has been ambushed by Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels just when he wanted to talk about encouraging figures on economic growth.
No wonder he was so furious on both occasions. He wants to trumpet the good news on the economy. But it keeps being drowned out by embarrassing political rows.
In PMQs last week it was welfare minister Lord Freud's comments that some disabled people were "not worth" the full minimum wage that caught the PM off guard.
In Brussels, at what he thought would be a mundane summit talking about ebola and climate change, Mr Cameron was whacked between the eyes by a demand for an extra £1.7bn from Britain to the EU.
So once again good news on the economy has been overshadowed and once again he's under attack, not just from Labour this time, but also from his foes in the purple peril, UKIP.
What probably made the PM even angrier was that he'd already arranged to return from Brussels after the summit via Rochester and Strood, where the Tories' bare-knuckle by-election scrap with UKIP takes place on November 20.
Mr Cameron stamped his feet at his Brussels news conference and said he won't pay the extra cash by the December 1 deadline set by the EU.
He has two objections: 1. It's too much, and, 2. He says the way it has suddenly been demanded at such short notice is unacceptable.
He may get away with not paying it by December 1, but it's difficult to see how he can avoid paying up eventually.
We're in the EU club, bound by its rules and treaties and the other members - the influential ones, that is, France and Germany, who are both getting a rebate - have no desire to change the rules.
But should Mr Cameron have seen this coming? And is he correct when he said at his news conference, "the first I saw of it was yesterday, Thursday"?
Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Treasury Chief Secretary, says he was informed "over the past couple of days".
But Labour's new shadow Europe minister Pat McFadden - a shrewd and inspired appointment by Ed Miliband - is not satisfied, claiming the Office for National Statistics published a report five months ago about growth figures and said they would be used in the calculation of Britain's contribution to the EU budget.
"Did the Government delay making news public about this expected revision to the UK's EU contribution because of fears about how it would play out for the Conservative Party," he asks.
In other words, did the PM want to hush up the EU cash grab until after the Rochester and Strood by-election?
A dangerous game, if he did. And one that could leave Mr Cameron vulnerable to further ambushes by his opponents both at Westminster and in Europe in the weeks ahead.
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