Hammond puts his foot in it

Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has just finished a pre-Budget lobby briefing, which I suspect will end in some troublesome headlines for him tomorrow for two reasons. 

First, non doms. Hammond asks us to believe that the Tory non-dom tax would scare away fewer millionaires than Labour’s policy. But the Tory figures claim they’d sting non-doms for £2.8bn, four times what Labour hope to sting the non doms for (Labour will only tax those who have been here for seven years). Hammond says the non-doms prefer certainty. Presumably for newly-arrived non doms that means the certainty of getting stung for £25k under the Tories versus the certainty of not getting stung until 2015 under Labour.

Next, tax. Hammond sat next to a huge chart showing up government debt is over 40% of GDP when one factors in Northern Rock (which he says it should). It begged an obvious problem.