First blood to Cameron

edwardbenson

Hmm, I think you're getting a bit carried away. Cameron will never have more ammunition than he had today, and it wasn't exactly the pasting we might have expected. However messy the last few weeks have been, Labour has arrived at a more credible position on IHT than the Tories. That's what will matter when the dust settles.

Oscar Miller

Edward Benson - I know you have to clutch at straws (it's all you've got) but even Kevin Maguire admitted on the Daily Politics that Cameron bested Brown. Cameron was compared to Mohammed Ali (floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee). Brown, by comparison was seen as the old clunking fist flailing about in his attempt to land a blow.

Prodicus

And Boulton is reporting mutterings from the Labour benches. Already?

David

"Labour has arrived at a more credible position on IHT than the Tories." What, spinning they've cut it when in fact they haven't? I suppose that counts as credible in Labour's dictionary.

AnyonebutBrown

What credible position on IHT? Merely ensuring people can make use of a 600K allowance that already exists without speaking to a lawyer and establishing a trust? More spin and lies. Whenever I see a Labour minister speak not all I mentally hear is "lie...lie...lie...evasion...lie...lie"

Oscar Miller

What was it that John Hutton was reputed to have said about a Brown premiership - it would be an effing disaster? Are his words coming back to haunt the Labour party now?

edwardbenson

I'm not denying for a minute that Cameron came out well on top today - it could hardly have been otherwise. And it's also true that the new Labour position on IHT and non-doms is the result of an unseemly and undignified scramble. But the fact is that, if you now contrast the positions of each party on those questions, Labour's seems more of a vote-winner to me. If the Tories aren't careful, they could easily be painted into the same old corner - taking risks with the economy in order to look after their own.

Guy

Could one of you savage public penmeisters loudly hammer the point that to have a Prime Minister giggling over cheap point scoring when the financial fate of the nation for the next few years is being rolled out by his Chancellor is hardly Prime Ministerial. It denotes a lack of sense of proportion, at least. Lord Salisbury would never have giggled.

Tiberius

Guy: check the "Brown disappoints..." thread.

Alex, London

edwardbenson - you're digging yourself into a embarrassing hole here. NB: you don't have to stick up for Labour's position everytime they say or do something cr~@

DavyB

edwardbenson-

As an IHT specialist lawyer I have to disagree with you about the IHT pledge. It is typical smoke & mirrors.

Any married couple who had already had their wills drafted by a competent solicitor would have already been enjoying the £600,000 combined allowance.

So in reality he has given away nothing.

Echoes of his phoney cut in Income Tax anyone?

At least the Tory pledge was something new and to the benefit of everyone.

David Towns

I entirely agree with DavyB. As a solicitor myself, I have looked at the Government's proposals and can only see that they are merely making an existing tax reducing scheme slightly more obvious. As DavyB says, the Tory pledge was at least something new, not like the rather typical Brown / Darling announcements of late, which always at first appear to be new initiatives, but which always turn out to be old news.

AnyonebutBrown

edwardbenson: Ignoring the IHT piece that DavyB expertly dissects, how can Labours position be a vote winner? Maybe in the large payroll-vote that Labour have gerrymandered across the UK? How can the Tories be taking risks with public finances when our public debt is now the largest in the EU15? Darling and his puppeteer Brown and done their usual accounting trick of removing 2Bn from the NHS budget at the last budget, then adding it back in now and claiming that as part of the % increase, as Darling cuts the overall rate of growth in NHS spending (Labour would have deceitfully called this a Tory cut and created a vision of grannies dying on trolleys and patients not receiving life-saving treatments because of the "cuts") but have borrowed a further 2Bn to keep NHS spending up for the next year. How prudent is that? Labour have been playing fast n' loose with the public finances and its shortly all about to end in tears as economic growth slows the PSBR will increase, the UKs debt service costs will increase and there will be huge pressure for tax rises (in addition to the 2Bn or so just added!), house prices will crash as unemployment grows. All in time for a 2009/10 election. Nice! What happened to the Tories in 1997 will be a tea-party compared to the electoral disaster that awaits Labour.

AnyonebutBrown

edwardbenson: Ignoring the IHT piece that DavyB expertly dissects, how can Labours position be a vote winner? Maybe in the large payroll-vote that Labour have gerrymandered across the UK? How can the Tories be taking risks with public finances when our public debt is now the largest in the EU15? Darling and his puppeteer Brown and done their usual accounting trick of removing 2Bn from the NHS budget at the last budget, then adding it back in now and claiming that as part of the % increase, as Darling cuts the overall rate of growth in NHS spending (Labour would have deceitfully called this a Tory cut and created a vision of grannies dying on trolleys and patients not receiving life-saving treatments because of the "cuts") but have borrowed a further 2Bn to keep NHS spending up for the next year. How prudent is that? Labour have been playing fast n' loose with the public finances and its shortly all about to end in tears as economic growth slows the PSBR will increase, the UKs debt service costs will increase and there will be huge pressure for tax rises (in addition to the 2Bn or so just added!), house prices will crash as unemployment grows. All in time for a 2009/10 election. Nice! What happened to the Tories in 1997 will be a tea-party compared to the electoral disaster that awaits Labour. PS I believe Darling will brake the laughable "Golden Rule" by borrowing the 2Bn for NHS current spending. It's not investment, it's current spending. And total government debt will bust the 40% of GDP rule, it certainly would if you included all the PFI debts or investments in NuLab newspeak (Edward, another Labour lie for you there). Will the media pick this up?

Gatehanger

I can’t help but think that we’re all getting animated about a tax which means very little to the over all income of the exchequer. The reason for this excitement is mainly because there has not been a debate on tax (outside of stealth) since Lawson put an end to 55%. Surely if the Conservatives were not pussy footing around the issue they would make policy which the Labour party, no matter what guise it is in, could not ape. Such as a married income tax along the lines of the Irish system which would protect marriage and cut the tax burden in one fell swoop. The fact is that if Labour can copy a Conservative policy with such ease the Torys will be chasing their tail for ever.

Fraser Nelson

DavyB - if you're a specialist IHT lawyer would you like to do a quick piece for CoffeeHouse explaining this? Most of Fleet Street has fallen for this nonsense, it would be great to have someone who knows about this setting the record straight. Email me: Fraser at spectator.co.uk

Fraser Nelson

DavyB - if you're a specialist IHT lawyer would you like to do a quick piece for CoffeeHouse explaining this? Most of Fleet Street has fallen for this nonsense, it would be great to have someone who knows about this setting the record straight. Email me: Fraser at spectator.co.uk

Pink Camellia

The IHT stunt seems to be from the same stable as Brown's usual ploy of announcing and reannouncing the same spending measures again & again. How can anyone believe any figures from this government? Brown's performance during Darling's speech was appalling- extremely unstatesmanlike and a definite vote loser.

Exasperated onlooker

Re IHT - Labour's proposals are not well thought through as the information needed to calculate the unused proportion of the nil-rate band where the first death took place some time ago is going to be very difficult, perhaps impossible in some cases, to obtain. This is because accurate figures for the value of estates well under the nil-rate amount were not required until recently. This is typical knee -jerk policymaking - clearly only thought of yesterday morning!

dearieme

Who'll it be? Jack Strawman, I suppose? Alan Postman?

TGF UKIP

Fraser, calm down, calm down dear; Matthew is supposed to be Dave cheerleader in chief - or are you bidding for the crown? V. dangerous if you are. Hitching your wagon to the star of anyone who can appoint Goldsmith and Gummer to anything or put Oliver Letwin in charge of policy development, really must be courting disaster. Meanwhile, AnyonebutBrown and DavyB make excellent points - points that it would be really invigorating to hear the Official Opposition making not just in the House but on every radio and TV programme to which they can gain access. Or is it going to be left to Vince Cable to make the running as usual.

Janice Small

Fraser, so right as usual. Jockocracy knows no bounds in the Darling Brown alliance. The blue-tongued one is being unclothed as the sheep in Tory clothing.

Fraser Nelson

TGF, I assure you I'm calm. We have to remember that Cameron produced the square root of nothing for his first 18 months. But who could deny that he thrashed Brown yesterday? And if he's got a grip now, he deserves support - and applause. Whether he'll keep it up is another issue. But he seems to have grasped that his enemy is not the Evil Old Tories but the socialist at the despatch box. And Janice - read Kelvin McKenzie in The Sun today who takes up your theme.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, I've had my bit of fun and I think we are broadly in agreement. Perhaps, Dave could be regarded as having last week successfully sued for peace with the enemy behind and can now concentrate on the opponent in front. One of his clever scriptwriters does, though, need to come up up with a witty formula that puts "no more Punch & Judy" to bed. It was always one of his dafter early moments and one reason he has consistently polled as being "weak."