Back to tax basics

David Gauke was only elected in 2005, but it’s impossible that he can’t remember the Back to Basics campaign, and how well that moral campaign worked out for the Conservative Party. Its 1993 launch precipitated revelations of all kinds of non-traditional behaviour in the party, from affairs to cash for questions. Had the Exchequer Secretary who bears the outstanding achievement of being named Tax Personality of the Year thought about the damningly long list of revelations that the Major government had to endure, he might have thought twice before declaring that it was ‘morally wrong’ to pay your plumber or cleaner cash-in-hand.

The problem with Gauke’s moralising was so obvious that it’s a wonder no-one pointed it out to him before his speech to Policy Exchange yesterday morning, or before he accepted the invitation to appear on Newsnight. If it didn’t then, it has now. I’ve had a very entertaining afternoon watching Twitter and the newswires updating with the MPs and ministers who ‘may have paid in cash’, or who ‘don’t dodge tax’ but can’t rule out having paid in cash.