Yesterday in Parliament, when David Cameron asked Brown if he honestly been planning to change Inheritance Tax rules before it proves so popular at the Tory Conference Brown said "unequivocally" yes. What's more he said "All the records will show it, under whatever rule they are released under the Freedom of Information Act."Later on the Lobby leapt on this and asked the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman why, if Brown was so adament that the records validate his claim he doesn't just "issue records now to prove that the Tory leader was absolutely wrong". The response was that "the Prime Minister had said what he had said in the House".
For those wishing a translation from Politicese that means "Jesus, why did the idiot say that and how do I row back from this". Something tells me the Treasury's FoI team will be busy furnishing many requests, who wants to bet that they use a friendly journalist to break the news they don't have anything?
10 comments:
GB didn't say he was planning to increase the threshhold. Perhaps he was planning to put up the rtes, or block a loophole such as offshore trusts.
There is no way he would have said this specifically if there were not records there waiting to be FoI'ed.
This was pro-active and deliberate. Not forced in any way whatsoever.
The requests will go in. This will take up quite a bit of time and effort fishing for the right request terms. It may even be that other even more felicitous revelations tumble out as a result.
The extent of Osborne's fibbing confirmed perhaps.
As already revealled at the time, ten minutes on by myself, and within hours by the sharper Tory bloggers such as yourself, the IHT changes were not that great - mostly a fix for some inequality on those with and without tax avoidance experts on hand.
Civil service advice to ministers is exempt from FOI laws. Brown needs to be careful.
Chris Paul said, "I am a troll and I'm digging a hole"
Chris Paul does love himself unreasonably doesn`t he. Oddly myself and a few others predicted that Brown was going to attack on IHT to avoid the obvious assumption he would be a tax raising socialist which he is.
I suspect the idea was explored but this proves nothing .He clearly was not going to act. It is entirely obvious what was actually going on. The reason we thought brown would throw the IHT sop was because its symbolic value was so much greater than its real revenue .
Civil service advice to ministers is exempt from FOI laws.
Penisons advice from civil servants to Brown was released to the Times after a massive long battle in the courts
It will be like this
Treasury wonks asked to review all major revenue sources and write up a "how we take more from it" and "less" option with implications of both.
No intention of ever going down in take, but Gordo would want to look at the spread of options to create a political story.
So no doubt, somewhere, he'll have a short paper but it was never the real game
Tut Tut Mr Brown. I am not surprised at this because Brown has a bit of form for telling the odd porkie, he has gotten away with it for so long that he appears quite complacent about it.
Where were the headlines when he promoted Cameron to a senior position in the Treasury under Lamont, or when he said British jobs for British workers, and as for all those misleading budgets with reams of small print?
Bet you feel a bit daft now dizzy? Going to issue a retraction?
What for?
Post a Comment