“David Cameron is poised to publish six years of his tax returns in a bid to end scrutiny over his investment in an offshore investment fund as he faced a potential investigation by Parliament’s standards watchdog. The move will put pressure on prospective Conservative leadership candidates Boris Johnson and George Osborne to follow his example. It came as YouGov polling suggested that the controversy over his tax affairs has damaged his reputation, with his approval level sinking below that of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, for the first time.” – Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday: ToryDiary: In defence of Ian Cameron
“This tax story may be minor, it may be overblown, it may be unfair on David Cameron, but it is very, very dangerous. The profound public suspicion to which the reports play — suspicion of the motives of those set in authority over us — is not going to go away. Do the rich, the powerful and the famous get that? They’d better, or the people will put a Marxist in Downing Street.” – Matthew Parris The Times(£)
Comment
“A petition against a £9m government campaign to promote EU membership will be considered for debate in Parliament, after getting over 100,000 signatures. The e-petition was set up after news broke that leaflets would be sent out to 27 million UK homes from next week. One MP told the BBC some Tory MPs may abstain from a Budget vote in protest at the taxpayer-funded leaflets.” – BBC
Comment
>Yesterday: Bernard Jenkin on Comment: The Government’s EU referendum booklet is an outrageous abuse of taxpayers’ money
“Only Conservative councils can be trusted to keep taxes low and give more power to local residents, David Cameron is to say as he launches the party’s English local elections campaign. The vote on 5 May is a clear choice between “Tory competence and the disarray of the rest”, he will say. The prime minister will argue council tax has fallen in real terms since 2010 as town halls gain budgetary freedoms. The Conservatives are defending about 880 seats last contested in 2012.” – BBC
“The first all-out strike in the history of the NHS looks unlikely to be averted after the government said that further talks would be pointless. Ministers believe that there is no chance of reaching agreement because the British Medical Association is unwilling to compromise on the key issue of Saturday pay. Officials say that after three years of failed negotiations they have been left with “no choice” but to push ahead with implementing a new contract.” – The Times(£)
“Sadiq Khan sent a mailshot to every household in London this week declaring that he was the “British Muslim who’ll take on the extremists”. The Labour mayoral candidate’s literature is the latest example of how he is putting his faith at the forefront of his campaign….Tory MP James Cleverly, a member of the London Assembly for Bexley and Bromley, indicated that Mr Khan was able to play down allegations that he had attended events in the past hosted by organisations linked to extremists because of his faith.” – The Times(£)
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has discovered he is the illegitimate son of Sir Winston Churchill’s last private secretary after taking a DNA test to prove his paternity, The Telegraph can disclose. The Most Reverend Justin Welby had until now believed his father to be Gavin Welby, a whisky salesman and son of a Jewish immigrant, who was married briefly to his mother, Jane.” – Daily Telegraph
“After his trickiest week so far, when he lost heavily in Wisconsin despite leading in the polls there a few weeks ago, the anti-politician is professionalising his campaign. As the race moves to a contested nominating convention this summer, he has been forced to hire a slew of new expert staff to exploit the complex rules needed to wrest a win from Ted Cruz. Paul Manafort, a lobbyist and former adviser to Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and both George Bushes, has been given a key role as the tycoon’s “convention manager”.” – The Times(£)
>Today: Erich Kirchubel on Comment: How America’s constitution would crush President Trump
“Although it would be wrong to pin the civil conflicts that have swept through the Middle East on architecture, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that western town-planning and modernist building-types, acting upon the indigenous sense of inferiority, have had a part to play in the destruction. If you wipe away settlements that have been home for centuries, and replace them with faceless blocks that might have been anywhere and are felt to be nowhere, it is not surprising if residents feel that they are already in conflict with their surroundings, and only one step away from conflict with their neighbours as well.” – Roger Scruton The Times(£)