Clegg promises £700 tax cut

Well done to Nick Clegg for announcing a very clear income tax cut of £700 for lower and middle earners. It will be a refreshing relief to go into the next general election promising a tax cut rather than having to defend tax increases. And I am delighted that finally we are expressing these things in pounds rather than pence. If you to say to someone they will receive a 4p tax cut, they really think “so what?” even if they realise somewhere in their brain that it is “in the pound”. It requires too much calculation for someone to work out what it means to them. So this change to expressing it in pounds per year terms is excellent.

I would also point out that the party’s estimate of funds freed up by closing loop holes etc is at the conservative, lower end of estimates.

Pot-kettle turf war

Is it me or is Guido disappearing up his own proverbial? Calling this ongoing Smeargate episode “schoolboyish” is being extremely unfair to schoolboys.

It seems Guido’s main gripe is that Draper/McBride etc weren’t as good at doing what he (Guido) does very well. Sort of gossip under the radar type of thing. There is this classic from Guido yesterday:

Maguire was still peddling innuendo from them about “Cameron’s alleged embarrassing complaint of a highly personal nature”.

Peddling innuendo? Perish the thought. Guido would never do that, would he?

So its seems a journalist isn’t allowed to peddle innuendo but a blogger like Guido is.

Why?

In essence, this seems to be a row over job descriptions. Guido can’t get a job as a real journalist so he invents a job as a blogger, but he doesn’t want journalists invading his turf.

It’s a turf war, really, isn’t it?