We haven’t heard the last of the mansion tax

In Manchester this week, there’ll be much talk from the Tories about how they are gunning for a majority. But in private, many senior Tories will admit that being the largest party in another hung parliament is a more realistic aim. As Matthew d’Ancona reveals in the Telegraph this morning, there has been talk—albeit brief– between the principals about a second coalition.

Matt also reminds us how, if it had not been for Cameron’s intervention, a mansion tax would have been imposed by the coalition. I suspect that if there is to be another coalition, the Liberal Democrats would insist on some kind of mansion tax. It has come for them a proxy for wider questions about how much influence they would wield inside a second Tory-Lib Dem coalition.

Now, it is hard to see how Cameron would agree to a mansion tax: his Tory soul rebels at the idea.