Osborne’s Easter gift to Boris

George Osborne indicating that he is open to him and other ministers having to publish their tax returns is testament to two things. First, the Tory leadership, who know how crucial a Boris victory in London is to the Cameron project regaining momentum, is keen to keep the pressure on Ken Livingstone over his tax affairs. They have no desire to let a row over whether they’ll publish theirs distract attention from the problems of Labour’s mayoral candidate. As Osborne himself stresses in the Telegraph interview, “The reason we are talking about this now is that this is a smokescreen for Ken Livingstone’s tax affairs. Let’s not take the focus off him.”

The second is that senior Tories have realised that if they appear to be reluctant to detail their tax affairs that’ll only increase media — and then public — pressure for them to do that.

I suspect, though, that — at the very least — the party leaders will end up publishing their tax returns at the next election.