We now live in a country where caviar is untaxed and a hot pasty is. Guido isn’t sure that’s quite the fairness agenda the government were trying to push and the continued budget hammering is well deserved and will be ongoing. A 10% drop in the latest polls suggests that raising taxes instead of cutting spending isn’t popular. Who knew?
Guido suspects Cornwall is now off Dave’s Easter holiday destination list. His government has fiscally attacked their national dish…
And just when the government are getting it in the neck, walking Tory liability and Young Conservative Chairman Ben Howlett goes out of his way to help matters:
Just the image the Tories want right now…
Thanks to an anonymous reader who goes by the name Paw the Mutton. They liked it so much that they laminated it…
UPDATE: For maximum amusement Guido is after the much rumoured Southern and Fox card. And the rest. They are out there somewhere. Get in touch if you find one.
Well in his head at least…
See also: EMAIL LEAK: Balls’ Spinner Admits “Screw Up” But Briefs Opposite
Given the spotlight this week, it’s pretty unfortunate timing for the Tories to be sending out mailshots to potential donors with references to Downing Street on the letterhead:
Is that the key or the keys they are offering?
Via Fleet Street Fox
Despite improvement at the polls despair and upset continues at Victoria Street according to many of our Labour HQ sources. Though the General Secretary Iain McNicol conceded that there was an uplift in mood when David Miliband popped in:
Labour HQ buzzing @DMiliband joined the @ken4london telephone canvassing.
— Iain McNicol (@IainMcNicol) March 26, 2012
The Executive Board chaired by Charles Allen, the distrusted Goldman Sachs advisor, has been renamed the “Senior Management Board” to calm down Labour’s National Executive Committee. It met on Friday in a panic and was by all accounts a pointless affair.
On Fridays the staff used to get an email from Iain McNicol, in true David Brent fashion it usually said what a great job he was doing, how hard he was working and how well everything is going. It was referred to internally as the ‘cringe sheet’ by staff and usually arrived late afternoon.
Concerns have been raised about the counter-productivity of the “cringe sheet”. Iain was asked to get it signed off by Charles Allen before it goes out in future. It hasn’t gone out since.
https://twitter.com/#!/abelardinelli/status/184420587672842241
Labour have spent all morning spinning the line that last night’s vote on the 45p tax rate was not a vote on it and that their abstention was not a massive howler. Well now Guido has seen a chain of emails between nervous political advisers looking to Balls’ bruiser Alex Belardinelli for direction on how to clean up his mess. Bear in mind that Belardinelli and Balls have spent the morning denying that this was a cock up or anything other than part of their grand master plan:
From: “BELARDINELLI, Alex”
Date: 27 March 2012 09:42:32 GMT+01:00
Subject: Re: Fwd: Nats in 50pTruth is there was a screw up somewhere along the way last night and it wasn’t clear what SNP had called a vote on or how, so we abstained on their vote.
Line is: we voted against whole Budget package which obviously includes 50p (first vote at 10pm), and we will seek to amend and vote on the Finance Bill on 50p, plus other issues of concern like the changes to allowances for pensioners (granny tax). There’s not much more we can say beyond that.
Other advisers “hope it will be ignored” after “trying to find out what went wrong”. They even share Guido’s coverage of events. The whole email chain can be found here.
Who would have thought that someone trained in the dark arts by firstly Tom Watson and then Balls would say one thing in public and something very different in private…
