Season’s greetings | 10 August 2010

David Cameron’s just launched his benefit cheat crackdown (Con Home has a little footage). There were two notable occurrences. First, Cameron agreed that tax evasion was as serious as benefit fraud and vowed to tackle it – this defused the slightly absurd criticism from the left about not challenging tax avoidance whilst hitting benefit cheats – tax avoidance is legal, benefit fraud and tax evasion are not. Tom Harris attacks his party’s attempt to draw any equivalence between tax evasion and benefit fraud, saying it misses the point: tackling fraud is to the benefit of all.

Second, a Mancunian woman called Sharon Reynolds has a crush on our Dave, a friend informed the Prime Minister. Cue the hunt for Lancastrian Shazza, led by Paul Waugh of Rochdale. It’ll end in tears if Sharon claims more than she’s entitled or if she’s a bit lax with her tax.

Oh yes, and there was a to-do about whether Cameron was ‘middle class’.