Inheritance Tax: Tory gain

The reaction from the opposition has been predictable, but I'm afraid the Tories are right about this one. Inheritance Tax should go, or at least be radically reformed, not necessarily for all the reasons John Redwood says it should but because, thanks to the phenomenon of fiscal drag, it has basically become a regressive tax that penalises people who by no stretch of the imagination can be considered rich.

I would be amazed if David Cameron does not put today's proposal straight in the Tory election manifesto, but it makes such obvious political sense that I would also be mildly surprised if some form of it does not also end up being purloined by Labour.

At the very least, ministers ought to consider some of the alternative options to outright abolition, such as exempting the main family home from the tax, or levying it at 20p rather than 40pc, or raising the threshold to £1m, so that it reverted to its original purpose as a tax only on the very wealthy.

Chancellor Alistair Darling today said the Government was "keeping the situation under review." Expect that review to have been completed well before the next General Election.

Hardly a ringing endorsement

The polls on this blog are not meant to be taken especially seriously - they are really there just to provide a bit of a talking point and to give users another way of interacting besides leaving comments. But the result of my recent survey on who should lead the Lib Dems into the next election makes interesting reading in my view.

The full result was as follows:

Sir Menzies Campbell 28%
Nick Clegg 22%
Charles Kennedy 21%
Chris Huhne 15%
None of these 11%

Given that a fair few of my readers are Tory and Labour supporters who might have voted for Sir Ming in the belief that a new Lib Dem leader might generate a recovery in the party's fortunes at their own parties' expense, this hardly constitutes a ringing endorsement. Neither does it demonstrate any clear consensus on who might replace Ming, with almost as many favouring a return to Charles Kennedy as backing leader-in-waiting Nick Clegg.

Still on the subject of the next election, a new poll is now running on when you think it will be held, within the available legal timeframe of autumn 2007 - spring 2010.

The death of TV cricket

This is the first summer since 1971 in which I have not watched a single ball being bowled live in an England Test series. It's left me feeling a bit bereft at times. In my bachelor days, sitting down with a couple of beers for a whole leisurely afternoon of ball-by-ball Test cricket was one of the great pleasures in life.

Sadly, this has not been possible since the foolish and completely counterproductive decision by the English Cricket Board to abandon terrestrial TV cricket coverage in favour of Murdoch's millions - all the more foolhardy since the decision was taken at the very moment when cricket had seemingly regained its rightful place in the national consciousness following the 2005 Ashes win.

Much as I miss watching the game, it's a price I'm prepared to pay for refusing to line the pockets of the man who has debased British culture and journalism more than any other single individual in the last 30 years.

Those now eulogising John Biffen should take note of this. For all his other many virtues, Biffen as Trade Secretary was the man who allowed Murdoch to buy The Times in 1981 and thereby emerge as the most powerful media figure in the UK.

More Family Matters...

A few weeks back, The Guardian published this excellent retrospective looking back at 50 years of the womens' page. I have to say it puzzled me a bit at the time, as whoever put it together seemed to be under the impression that the womens' page was only 50 years old and that iconic feminist Mary Stott was the page's first editor.

In fact, as I have known since my own childhood, they were wrong on both counts. The Guardian womens page - then called Mainly Women - was started in the early 1920s and its first editor was my great aunt, Madeline Linford, who continued in the role until she was succeeded by Stott in 1953.

What was especially odd about this omission was that the Guardian had not read its own cuttings. In 1971, it published an interview with Madeline in which she was clearly identified as the founder of the page. The interview was carried out by none other than Mary Stott.

Thankfully, there is no need for me to write a letter to the Guardian pointing out its error as my redoubtable aunt, Sylvia Michaelides, has already done so. Gratifyingly, the paper's former editor, Peter Preston, has also since written a column restoring Madeline to her rightful place in the paper's history.