A new £900million drive will see HMRC investigators “crack down” on offshore bank account holders, it emerged in the Spending Review. Five times as many people including professionals such as doctors will be prosecuted for tax evasion “as a deterrent to others”, while a “cyber team” will tackle fraud in repayment of money owed. Large businesses will scrutinised more carefully, and private debt collectors will be called in to help r ... Jump to full article >>

Less state spending? When my beloved tells me she intends to cut back on the shopping, my reaction is invariably one of pathetic, hog-whimpering relief. Same yesterday listening to George Osborne. Inside the Commons, the Chancellor was squeaky and judiciously glum. So statist have our politics become in recent years, MPs are terrified of standing up for the taxpayers. Outside the Palace of Westminster there was a sunnier mood. TV crews had set u ... Jump to full article >>

George Osborne is planning to eradicate Britain’s budget deficit by emulating Canada, where borrowing was brought under control within just three years by spending cuts of 20 per cent. The Chancellor will announce a “once-in-a-generation” revolution in public spending inspired by Canada in the mid-1990s, when the government turned a budget deficit of nine per cent of GDP into a surplus. Canada brought public spending under con ... Jump to full article >>

I tell you it’s enough to shake a chap’s confidence in Her Majesty’s Press. It was barely a month ago that my trembling fingers reached for a Sunday paper proclaiming in huge type, all over the front page, that Gordon Brown was “on course” to win the election. So imagine my feelings of bewilderment yesterday morning when I went to the same newsagent to buy the very same newspaper. And there – on the same front pag ... Jump to full article >>