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A week is a long time in politics as the old saying goes and it must have never felt more so than for the Prime Minister. After Number 10’s spectacular failure to manage the fall-out from the Panama Papers, the PM began his week, the first of the summer session, by being hauled into parliament to defend not just his tax affairs, but those of his late father.
Making public (a summary of) his tax affairs along with the publication of others’ including those of George Osborne, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn’s somewhat shambolic tax return, may have quelled speculation for now, but the whole episode will only serve to further undermine public trust in our political elite. As Jacob Rees Mogg MP (who will be speaking next week at Interel’s EU Referendum Debate against Chuka Umunna MP) conceded it was the “politicians’ fault because we lost the trust of the public […] over the expenses affair.” It also of course serves to echo, as IDS reminded us, that we are perhaps not all in this together.
And who would have thought that the tax affairs of David Cameron’s late father could derail the EU referendum campaign? Proving as ever that you can plan campaigns in meticulous detail but we are all at the mercy of events. The ‘Remainers’ were helped onto the front foot, however, by the IMF on Tuesday noting that an exit from the EU could cause "severe regional and global damage" and you cannot get much worse than that. But, this was a temporary reprieve as polling from YouGov showed the vote is still too close to call.
Jeremy Corbyn meanwhile sought to convince us that despite years of EU hostility, he did after all feel it was better to be EU in. This is perhaps, rather like his tax return, too little too late. While, given the row over the Government’s EU referendum leaflets, many of us were then duly surprised when the said small, bland and uninspiring document eventually landed on our doormats.
If there was one silver lining to the Panama Papers for the Government it was that it at least helped to mask some of their other problems not least being defeated in the Lords on aspects of the Housing and Planning Bill, rows over the benefits of academies and the fall-out from Tata Steel. This week saw Sajid Javid continue to scramble a deal together and seek to recover his own leadership ambitions, after the Government’s weak handling of the crisis. Equally, while George Osborne’s publication of his tax payments from just last year may raise a few eyebrows, it did mean less media scrutiny, for now at least, of the second reading of the Finance Bill which took place on Monday legislating for the latest omnishambles budget.
So, all in all, a tough week for the Government but with 10 weeks to go until the referendum, life won’t be getting any easier any time soon.