Below you can see that yesterday Guido suggested there had been some kind of policy U-turn on Death Taxes by the ventriloquist’s dummy that is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Guido even illustrated it with a big blue U-turn just to drive the point home.

As the sharper readers have pointed out, it was no such thing. In fact it was just essentially a re-presentation of, what Alastair Darling let slip this morning on the Today programme, was an already scheduled raising of the IHT threshold from £300,000 to £350,000. It additionally removed the necessity for spouses to visit a financial advisor for one aspect of estate planning. There was no new tax cut. It was a U-turn in rhetoric only.

Darling and Brown will still be rubbing their hands every time a middle-class, family-home-owner dies, the uninvited smiling guests at the funeral wake to present the bereaved with a tax bill.

Guido apologises for any confusion caused.