Margaret Hodge is enjoying her day in the limelight but continuing to dodge Guido’s questions about her own perfectly legal and sensible tax efficiency. The slayer of Starbucks and chief inquisitor at the Public Accounts Committee has been peddling around a Private Eye story that she says exonerates her over the tax avoidance allegations put to her by Tory MP Priti Patel. The Eye claim that one figure used by the Telegraph and Mail was “complete b******s”, but there was more…

Cute as it is of the Eye to fight her battles for her, their whitewash conveniently ignores why Hodge described the valuation of her family business shareholdings as “tiny, tiny, tiny”, and whether or not – as even Polly Toynbee suggests – placing some shares in trust reduces the inheritance tax liability of her children. Guido put those questions to her again last week, but still Hodge is dodging answering. If she called Stemcor to the Public Accounts Committee, as recommended, we would get to the truth once and for all…