Spotlight on Cameron

Spotlight onto Cammers this morning. Firstly, Philip Hammond, his Shadow Chief Secretary, begs some questions in his pre-Budget briefing, according to Fraser Nelon:

First, non doms. Hammond asks us to believe that the Tory non-dom tax would scare away fewer millionaires than Labour’s policy. But the Tory figures claim they’d sting non-doms for £2.8bn, four times what Labour hope to sting the non doms for (Labour will only tax those who have been here for seven years).....

Next, tax. Hammond sat next to a huge chart showing up government debt is over 40% of GDP when one factors in Northern Rock (which he says it should). It begged an obvious problem. If the Tories want to rectify this, they can forget about any tax cuts.

Secondly, polls. The Times is running the latest Populus poll, which shows Labour up three points to 34 and the Tories down three to 37. Calamity Clegg seems to have, er, increased the LibdDems' rating by two points. So Cameron's lead over Brown is down from nine points to three points, and the over-excitable Jon Craig is already pulling out his knife. He reckons there'll be calls for tax cuts at the spring conference this weekend. Wow, calls for tax cuts at a Tory conference. That really is incisive commentary...