And the award for worst government initiative goes to...
Congratulations to BDO Stoy Hayward, named accountancy firm of the year at last night's STEP awards. Congratulations to the government too - for not winning one of the gongs handed out by the trust and estate community.
Congratulations for not winning an award? Shurely shome mistake, you might say. But with the final category enticingly branded 'worst government initiative of the year', ministers deserve some credit for not being the recipient.
More puzzling was the fact that it was a category listed in the programme and conspicuous by its absence during the cermony itself.
Had host Andrew Marr simply forgotten? Presumably not as he was followed to the podium by the STEP president who also neglected to mention the award.
Perhaps there was truth in the suggestion of a fellow diner that there can't have been a bad government initiative this year. (Suggestions on a postcard please...). After all as Marr himself had earlier said: 'The prime minister has, by common consent, done rather better than expected - despite having to cope with every biblical plague know to man since he took office - floods, foot and mouth...'
For the record last year the award was won by The Treasury for Budget note 25 on aligning the inheritance tax treatment for trusts. Needless to say no one from Great George Street was available to collect it.
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