So who did really well yesterday? Not small businessman, wacked with an 80% hike in capital gains tax when they sell their business at retirement. Alternatively if they work themselves to death dealing with regulatory red tape and hand the business on to their children, Brown and Darling will take, compared to the Tories, an extra £560,000* off the bereaved children. So much for rewarding enterprise.

If you own two homes you just got a handy reduction from 40% to 18% on capital gains. Is it a coincidence that almost all MPs own two homes? The constituency and Westminster home owners already benefit from a tax-free allowance worth £40,000 annually to pay their mortgages. Now they can sell the taxpayer funded second home and only pay the reduced capital gains – a 55% tax cut for MPs.

Mr and Mrs Balls are paid by the taxpayers quarter-of-a-million a year between them, so hard done by are they that they still claim tens of thousands extra in mortgage subsidy on top. Now with the new changes they will be able to sell that second home you paid for and they will pay only 18% tax on it. No wonder they are laughing…

UPDATE : A co-conspirator reminds Guido not to forget the Miliband boys successful efforts to award themselves an IHT tax cut. David Milband is today living in a £ 1.5 million ultra-fashionable-Primrose Hill townhouse at the centre of a complex inheritance-tax avoidance scheme. He shamelessly exploited a loophole which he used to reduce his death duty bills.

When his father Ralph died in 1994 aged 70, leaving a large estate, the Miliband boys agreed a ‘deed of variation’. The cunning move meant that 40% of the equity of the Primrose Hill home was transferred to Ed and David, who were each given a 20% share in the house neatly evading the tax bill.

*Could be an incorrect figure, see the debate in the comments. Guido is not an accountant.

Tory and LibDem HQs are more fearful of defections today than the Soviet Olympic Team Coach used to be. Benedict Brogan says it is not going to be Rifkind. Some are worried about Patten. Still no public denial by Bercow, who incidentally backed the expansion of grammar schools last month.

LibDems should be aware that Shirley Williams was apparently spotted going into Gordon’s Commons office. She incidentally closed down grammar schools. So presumably her talent would cancel out Bercow’s talent.

Is it all just to destabilise the opposition? Of course, but it goes both ways, Frank Field was spotted chatting to David Laws, his brow furrowed. You never know…

UPDATE : Adam Boulton is reporting “Strong rumours that the Lib Dem peer and QC Alec Carlisle will be appointed Attorney General.”

Iain is being a little unfair on the blessed Ruth citing her as potentially Labour’s Most Incompetent Minister.

Firstly Mrs Balls (Yvette Cooper) deserves most of the opprobrium for the HIPs mess and there is a competitive field of choices in the ministerial incompetence stakes. Prezza has messed up more policies in his time than most. Hewitt is hardly the best of the bunch, Des Browne sends men to die for lack of equipment and lack of any comprehensible strategic or even credible tactical plan in Afghanistan.

Des Browne gets Guido’s vote, his incompetence is the most serious. It is wasting the lives of British soldiers…

MPs like Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander, Liam Byrne, Martin Salter discussing with Polly Toynbee anti-Tory political strategies is nothing new, discussing them at a non-partisan, non-political charity event would be very interesting. That is exactly what they did at a seminar held on Tuesday 22nd March 2005 on the very eve of the General Election.Also attending were – surprise, surprise – Deborah Mattinson and Scarlett McGwire from Opinion Leader Research, pollsters for the Treasury.

Polly advised the Labour team about the Tory’s tactics; “Dog whistling is exactly what it is: hitting and running day after day, leaving Labour looking lame, wrong footed, unable to keep up. All the more important is to be able to produce the kind of moral vision that is envisaged here or is beginning to be described here.”

All the more important for who? Ed Balls tells her he was “very taken by Polly’s language in terms of a need for a legend for the left.” The seminar transcript goes on and on. So the question is – does the Charity Commission still believe that the Smith Institute is non-political?

Isn’t it just Gordon Brown’s strategic campaigning arm?

UPDATE : Christopher Hope in the Telegraph has discovered that Ed Balls advocated a new NHS tax at another closed meeting of the Sith.

In a puff piece in the Brownite Daily Mail, Blinky does a bit of false modesty and says “I still have a lot to learn.” He tells Dacre’s hacks, “No” he won’t be taking over at the Treasury “I have been a Minister for less than a year”. Yes, and he has barely managed to hang on to his parliamentary seat. If Brown hadn’t sorted out a sinecure and a peerage for the neighbouring sitting MP his protege would soon face actually having to earn a living.

Guido has been betting against Balls being Chancellor for sometime, his odds are far too short and he has effectively made himself a longshot. Alastair Darling should get the gig unless the upcoming cabinet game of musical chairs somehow upsets Brown’s plans. In other bets Guido has rebalanced the Blair-to-Go bet to July/Sep on Betfair. Uncharacteristically am “all red” on any other outcome. If Yates forces an early Blair resignation Guido will take a hammering at the bookies, but it would be worth it…

Cheer yourself up again by watching Blinky fall apart under interrogation by Brillo.

Although his master was absent (presumably washing his hair) Ed Balls was in the chamber during PMQs.

Colin Challen was called to ask the Prime Minister a question, and the minute his name left the Speaker’s lips the cat-calls began. “My Lord!” and “Where’s Ed?” came from the across the floor. Labour MPs writhed with embarrassment. And Ed Balls stood at the Bar of the House looking distinctly sheepish.

Of course if Blinky Balls isn’t going to be dropped into Challen’s seat, he really has nothing to be sheepish about. It is not like Gordon would have done something as sleazy as secure Challen a comfy sinecure on the Treasury’s Stern Commission and a peerage to follow. Gordon is above that sort of thing, he wouldn’t line up a peerage for the Sith’s Wilf Stevenson or his generous moneyman backer and PFI profiteer Ronnie Cohen either.

Da Fink thinks a bit of cronyism is just dandy anyway, because all parties do it. That’s alright then…

The Times has a big two-page spread today and a leader on the growing influence of right-of-centre think tanks. Fascinating as it is, why choose today to concentrate on these think-tanks? Phil Webster, political editor, is a friend of Ed Balls and a fellow supporter of Norwich. They even travel to matches together.

Tucked away elsewhere in the paper is a tiny PA piece on a Charity Commission investigation of another think-tank where Ed Balls once worked. Times readers will have to look hard to find it. All the other papers give it prominence Telegraph – page 4, FT – page 3, Independent – page 24, Mail – page 4, Guardian – page 16, Express – page 4, not forgetting the BBC. Even News International stablemate The Sun has a piece on it.

Fact : The Times had the Smith Institute / Gordon Brown story last year.

Bloomberg News is reporting that Bob Shrum, the veteran U.S. pollster and campaign adviser, was paid by the Smith Institute to formulate an anti-Cameron campaign strategy for Gordon Brown.

They have obtained a transcript of a speech given to a private Smith Institute invited audience, which included Brown acolytes Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander, as well as other media allies. Shrum advised the Brownites to brand Cameron as “an empty opportunist who will do anything to win”.

The event was held to review Cameron’s first 100 days in March 2006.

Guido understands that a formal complaint to the Charity Commissioners requesting a full-scale investigation of the Smith Institute under Section 8 of the Charity Act will be considered by the Charity Commission today.

++ more follows ++