George Osborne’s Treasury has wreaked revenge on high-earning hookers after a £1,000-a-night tart was jailed over a £120,000 tax fraud. Donna Asutaits will go down for 16 months after being found guilty of evading taxes over a two year period in which she earned over £300,000. UKuncut will be happy…

Osborne is responsible for the HMRC cracking down on high-earning tax evaders, demanding that high-class call girls pay a whopping 45% of their earnings, making him the harshest and most lucrative pimp in Britain. Guido can’t imagine how George ever got involved in such a sordid business…

France’s socialist president François Hollande visited David Cameron at Downing Street today, but the afternoon press conference turned into a bit of an embarrassment for Dave as his opposite number threw up a few surprises from the right of the PM. Not only did Hollande promise he wouldn’t tax second homes owned by Britons south of the Channel, but he taunted George Osborne’s top rate of income tax as too left-wing:

Ooh la la! Hollande: 'The top rate of tax in Britain is 45%. In France it's 41%'—
James Chapman (Mail) (@jameschappers) July 10, 2012

He’ll be calling for an EU referendum next…

BBC News got itself in a muddle this morning after mistaking Barclays chairman Marcus Agius for Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna. What have they been smoking…

Yesterday Labour published their policy review report making the case for a British Investment Bank. Ed told an audience at the Co-op bank that the UK’s financial services sector was “socially destructive“, throwing his weight behind Nicholas Tott’s suggestion of a state-run investment bank to help small businesses. That’s the same Nicholas Tott whose credentials include Bromley NHS’ Private Finance Initiative, a scheme with such astounding success that the trust has now effectively gone into administration. Good to know that Ed is listening to the right people on finance…

The Telegraph reports that there is trouble in paradise for former Brown spinner Derek Draper and his TV presenter wife Kate Garraway after she had a snoop through his emails. Following a discussion concerning fears about cheating husbands Garraway revealed: “I read something I wasn’t supposed to last week and it’s still quite tense in our house“, before quickly clarifying: “it wasn’t a love affair“. Guido couldn’t possibly comment… 

The last time Dolly got into a spot of bother over his emails things didn’t end well. Guido hopes that this time it’s nothing more than a bit of harmless feminist fun…

The European Court of Justice has ruled that retired Eurocrats including the yacht-loving Lord Mandelson will be allowed to dodge tax on a huge scale. Brussels pensions are exempt from national taxes, meaning that the likes of Mandelson and Neil Kinnock only have to cough up 8% on their five-figure taxpayer-funded EU income. Am guessing the Euro-Judges will benefit from their ruling too. The decision to permit an official tax avoidance scheme for former EU officials comes as Brussels cracks down on tax dodging across the continent.  Guido wonders whether George Osborne thinks his old friend Mandy is morally repugnant…

Yesterday Guido pointed to Liz Truss advocating tax hikes for the working elderly, today another Tory MP, Nic Boles, is planning to hit the pockets of OAPs. He wants to take away welfare benefits from the wealthy – Brown’s £300 winter allowance for rich retirees on the Riviera is a target. This welfare payment is symbolic of all that that was wrong with Brown’s welfare universalism.

Guido has never understood why millionaires should get welfare benefits, Brown deliberately doled out welfare bribes to the affluent who didn’t really need them to gain political buy-in for the welfare state. Welfare universalism was an ideological policy designed to create middle class support for Brown’s Big Government tax and spend dependency culture. Unravelling welfare universalism is key to cutting the deficit.

The affluent old are a key Tory voting demographic group, Boles is being brave taking them on. As with removing Child Benefit from millionaire mothers there will be resistance and much shroud waving. Unlike raising taxes on the working old, this reform is worth doing…