24 hours later and Osborne’s budget has yet to unravel, though both sides are having quite a set-to over the Help to Buy mortgage scheme. This morning Labour spinners got very excited by Osborne’s refusal to deny that the scheme would help wealthy homeowners to buy second homes, having the cheek to call it the “spare home subsidy”.

Big Budget story emerging – Osborne unable to deny that his new housing scheme will allow wealthiest to buy second homes with govt support—
Labour Press Team (@labourpress) March 21, 2013

Both Osborne and Cable again did not deny it in the House at lunchtime. A Tory spokesman insists to Guido: “this is a very technical area. We have said that we are going to consult in order to get this right, instead of rushing into decisions or knee jerk reactions”. Yet Housing minister Mark Prisk seems to have made his mind up, telling Wato second homes would not be included.

Labour aren’t having a much better time of it: yesterday two-faced Chuka Umunna told Radio 4 he liked the policy, today he’s against it. If it turns out the spare home subsidy doesn’t exist and the policy is as he thought yesterday, that leaves him in a rather awkward position…

Last but not least of the cabal of millionaires who have donated to Hacked Off is Lord Sainsbury. A life peer with a net worth of £1.3 billion, Sainsbury has been a major financial backer of the Labour Party, forking out many millions to Blair. He acted through his Gatsby Foundation to finance the Media Standards Trust through which his money help set up and support Hacked Off. In passing it should be noted that he was a big backer of the SDP and also has his fingerprints on other politcal organisations such as the Social Market Foundation, Progress, David Miliband’s Movement For Change and the Institute for Government, the last of which Guido thinks is the most serious threat to freedom in Britain since the Communist Party. Through Hacked Off, Sainsbury has surpassed himself…

Here are the other Hacked Off donors Guido has revealed today:

• Hacked Off Donors: #1 Lady Annabel Goldsmith
• Hacked Off Donors #2: Jeremy Clarkson Gave Hacked Off £1,000
• Hacked Off Donors: #3 City Tycoon Shagger Arpad Busson
• Hacked Off Donors: #4 Celebrity Hairdresser John Frieda
• Hacked Off Donors: #5 Millionaire Ex-Journalist Alain de Botton

Even in opposition, Ed Balls is still finding ways to waste taxpayers’ money. New figures show a group of senior Labour MPs have claimed £151,474 on expenses paid to Gordon and Badley Communications, a PR firm run by two party acolytes. Fiona Gordon is the partner of Labour MP Steve McCabe and was the Prime Mentalist’s political secretary, Caroline Badley was a party press officer. Guido wonders how many other non-Labour affiliated PR firms were considered.

The 16 senior Labour MPs using taxpayer cash to help out their old pals include Balls, Yvette Cooper, Liam Byrne, Jon Cruddas, Tom Watson, Bridget Phillipson, Diana Johnson, Emma Reynolds, Gisela Stuart, Ian Austin, Jack Dromey, Julie Hilling, Khalid Mahmood, Lyn Brown, Robert Flello and Shabana Mahmood. Cronyism plain and simple…

Click on Dave to see his proposals for the future of the British press, click on Nick and Ed to see their statutory alternative…

Bar brawler Eric Joyce has been banned from buying alcohol on the parliamentary estate, only a few years too late. The Commons authorities have confirmed to Guido that Martin Brown, Joyce’s researcher who is accused knocking a female researcher to the ground, is still free to drink in Parliament. Since complaints about staffers go through the MP before they reach the Commons, as yet no action can be taken. Parliamentary bag-carriers: don’t say Guido didn’t warn you…

Regular readers will remember how Guido has been on the case of shamed Labour rent-swapper Linda Riordan. In October last year it was revealed how this expenses piggy rented out her London flat to another MP and skimmed off an extra £1,000-a-month in profit from the taxpayer, charging a rent of £1,560 on a property where her mortgage costs her some £500-a-month. The other MP in question, Iain McKenzie, amusingly insisted he had never heard of Riordan. Nonetheless, Riordan admitted that she had been caught red-handed and promised to kick McKenzie out, sell up and pay back the profits.

In the last few weeks Riordan has finally flogged her London property, putting an end to the whole dodgy arrangement. Whether her constituents will forgive her in 2015 is another matter…

Watson belted out the Kings of Leon classic last night alongside Labour songstresses Luciana Berger and Gloria De Piero. All for charity of course. You can donate to his Comic Relief page here…

Looks like we’re heading for a big old showdown on Monday. Guido understands Labour have withdrawn all pairs for select committee delegations on Monday. Removing the slips revokes permission not to be in Parliament for the crucial Crime and Courts bill wrecking amendment. The Tories have “reluctantly” followed suit, with no exceptions. Business will run beyond 10pm – it’s going to be a long day…

Liam Byrne calls it a “hated tax”, Jim Murphy says the government should “listen” to the public. Most damning of all, Owen Jones warns of the disastrous electoral consequences of the government’s changes to the spare room subsidy:

“A warning to Number 10. You calculate your attempt to demonise benefit claimants has paid off, removing all potential empathy. But – unfortunately for you – most are decent people. When the electorate realise you are inflicting misery not on “scroungers”, but on some of the most vulnerable in society, your campaign will fail. You bank on the suffering remaining below the radar, and you will be proved wrong. We will hammer you with the consequences, and, in time, you will be defeated.”

Apparently not content with peddling the bedroom “tax” lie, a YouGov poll shows Labour aren’t being entirely truthful about what the public think, either. Awkwardly, 49% of the public support the government’s reforms, compared to just 38% against. Even 34% of Labour voters support the policy. They won the battle on how the debate was framed in the media, but despite what Owen says the “decent people” he talks of recognise that the reforms make sense…

UPDATE: At least one Shadow minister is finally listening to the public:

Dave says no deal to Nick and Ed; they will now have to vote him down on Monday. Channelling Churchill the PM says “a free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny”. Labour will now have to wreck the Crime and Courts bill if they want to pursue statutory regulation. The trap is set…