When dolphins hunt fish, they gang up on them as a school, chasing them into the shallows. So it happens at the daily lobby briefing: when a morsel of a story appears and someone lets down their guard, the whole pack of journalists jumps in. Today the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was chased into the shallows on the plan, which appears rather dead in the water, to publish ministers’ tax affairs.
The plan had been for the most senior members of the Cabinet to do this, and David Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable had agreed on it last spring. But nothing has happened. The only reason it came up today was that French ministers, in an attempt to restore public trust in politicians, have been publishing details of their wealth (including a very expensive pair of carbon-hulled canoes). It was a throwaway question, but the Prime Minister’s official spokesman’s response was repeatedly ‘he would be relaxed about that, his view is unchanged’. What did he mean by ‘relaxed’? Was this the same spirit of relaxation with which teenagers regard tidying their bedrooms, or the sort of ‘relaxed’ that means he’s about to do it, just in a chilled out sort of way?
The journalists started chasing an answer. Was the Prime Minister actually relaxed about not publishing the details? What was blocking him from doing so? What is the trigger point for the details being published? The answer, unsurprisingly, was that his view on the matter hasn’t changed. And he’s ‘relaxed’ about it happening. What also doesn’t seem to have changed is ministers’ ability to jolly well get on with putting this information out there if they think it matters so much.
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