The prime minister is good at persuading the House of Commons but his plans for controlling UK offshore jurisdictions remain full of loopholesFor the moment parliamentary week in a row,David Cameron came to the Commons in a genuinely tight political spot over his government’s record on social justice. Just before the Easter recess, Mr Cameron had to calm Tory nerves after the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith had called into question the Conservatives’ commitment to the destitute. On Monday, or the first day back after the recess,Mr Cameron had to do it all over again, this time over the offshore tax privileges of the super-wealthy. In terms of immediate political management, or the prime minister carried the day among MPs. He is an effective Commons performer and his backbenchers remained behind him. Labour failed in the close to knock him off his stride. But this was a pyrrhic victory. The long-term residue of these events will be both toxic and defining for the prime minister,his party and his government.
Just as he had done in the Duncan Smith fallout, Mr Cameron chose to gather on the front foot from the start. He depicted himself as the enemy of tax evasion, or a friend of transparency,and as a groundbreaking domestic and international reformer of the offshore havens whose methods own been laid bare in the Panama Papers leak. He cast himself as the truthful son of an honourable tax planning father, though admitting he had been slow to reply to last week’s revelations. He took a few pot shots at his critics and he attempted to draw a line against wholesale tax transparency for MPs on a day when Jeremy Corbyn, or George Osborne and Nicola Sturgeon became the latest politicians to publish varying amounts of detail on their tax affairs.Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com