Next Left (Free subscription) | 10 hours ago
Andrew Rawnsley has an excellent article in today's Observer on the changing politics of inheritance tax. George Osborne's pledge in 2007 to raise the threshold for the tax to £1m was very popular and pushed Labour on to the back foot, so much so that Labour followed with its own move to raise the threshold from £325,000 to £650,000 (for couples). (Quite why only children with coupled...
Norfolk Blogger (Free subscription) | 11 hours ago
A few years ago nobody had heard of "non doms ", but now most people have a good idea that those who are "non domiciled" in the UK and avoid paying UK income tax, now pay a fairly nominal flat rate of £25,000 a year and that is it. Now for anyone earning over £70,000 a year, being able to pay a one off £25k might seem like a bargain in order to avoid paying more...
Valleys Mam (Free subscription) | 3 hours ago
Zac Goldsmith, green adviser to David Cameron and prospective Tory MP, for Richmond,has admitted that he claims non-domicile tax status. This enables him to avoid huge sums of tax on his estimated £200m fortune. This must be embarrassing for the Tory party. He admits to being a “non-dom” so he can legitimately escape paying tax on his inheritance from his late father, Sir James Goldsmith,...
Next Left (Free subscription) | 13 hours ago
Next Left can exclusively reveal that plans are shaping up for a forthcoming launch of a major new right-wing pressure group. The Non-Taxpayers Alliance is to be headed by Tory ppc and non-dom Zac Goldsmith , with Michael Ashcroft as Treasurer . Its launch slogan is expected to be " We're in this together - but the rest of you can pay our share ". Registered in the Cayman Islands, the group...
Peter Black AM (Free subscription) | 16 hours ago
Oh dear, this is not going to go down too well in the leafy suburbs of Richmond, Surrey. Zac Goldsmith, who was the Tories big hope to take the seat back off the Liberal Democrats, the green advisor to David Cameron and who was even being touted as a possible future Minister, has admitted that he claims non-domicile tax status , enabling him to avoid huge sums of tax on his estimated £200m fortune:...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 21 hours ago
Promising to slash inheritance tax once looked like a brilliant coup for the Tories. Now it's an albatross around their necks Well, it looked like a clever idea at the time. Indeed, it was a clever idea at the time. Such was the almost unanimous verdict of the media, politicians and pollsters, left, right and centre. It was a wizard wheeze, a coup de théâtre and a deadly tax bombshell...
The Independent (Free subscription) | 21 hours ago
For a whole week, the political classes have been obsessed by the prospect of a hung Parliament. The subject has arisen quite suddenly, out of nowhere, or almost nothing. All that happened was that a newspaper published an opinion poll showing a reduced but still perfectly healthy Conservative lead. There were also a few straws in the November wind indicating that Mr David Cameron was not the universal...
Paul Owen (Free subscription) | yesterday
I got an e-mail from Dave yesterday. I get them regularly. This one was about climate change. Was it a shocked and appalled reaction to Climategate? It was not. It was the usual stuff about tackling this 'real danger'. Real danger, Dave? Are you sure? The Conservatives, Dave told me, are going to be making various speeches over the next few days in the run up to the Copenhagen festival of hot air....
The Final Redoubt (Free subscription) | yesterday
Where Nick Griffin tells the truth and David Cameron talks complete bollox... Dear Harry, In nine days time, representatives from 192 countries will meet in Copenhagen for the UN Conference on climate change. This summit is of historic importance. It is an opportunity for the world to take bold action to deal with the real danger of climate change. So this week, ahead of the summit, members of my Shadow...
Musings from Medway (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
Members of the public should not the recent comments of a prominent Conservative council leader, who has cast signficant doubts over the quality of the shadow Cabinet , suggesting they are not experienced enough to run a country. The stout, Stephen Greenhalgh, leader of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and head of the Conservative councils’ innovation unit , made the remarks at a...
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Catgirls (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
Was reading this story in the Spectator tonight, which doesn't make me any more confident of a a Cameron government, but this part struck me; The first is the policy board, a seven-strong Dragons’ Den-style panel where new ideas are tested. Mr Cameron, George Osborne, Steve Hilton, William Hague, Francis Maude, Nick Boles and Oliver Letwin are the permanent members of this committee. Between...
Dolton's Domain (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
Reading the latest issue of the New Stateman this morning has got me thinking about the possibility of a hung parliament after next year's general election. The left wing current affairs magazine has suggested that if Labour remain the largest party in the House of Commons, yet still don't hold over half the seats in the house (unlikely, but not impossible) then we could see a pact with the Liberal...
Labour Matters (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
Figures released yesterday to Parliament reveal that the Conservatives plan billions of pounds worth of tax cuts for the wealthiest few in Britain. On the same day that David Cameron spoke on inequality at the launch of a Tory think tank, newly released figures showed Tory plans for a marriage tax allowance would give the highest earners 13 times as much as people on lower incomes - and many couples...
ConservativeHome's YourPlatform (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
Greg Clark MP is Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. This week seven members of the Shadow Cabinet – David Cameron, George Osborne, William Hague, Andrew Mitchell, Grant Shapps, Nick Herbert and myself - have made speeches...
Flip Chart Fairy Tales (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
Most commentators are decidedly underwhelmed by the recommendations of the Walker Review. Most of the attention has been focussed on bankers’ pay and, specifically, the decision not to force banks to publish the names of staff being paid over £1 million in a given year. George Osborne has accused the government of running scared by back-tracking [...]
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