Politics dominates Budget
Accountancy Age cropped up in the end in the pre-Budget report debate, although perhaps not in the most flattering way. (That said, I very much subscribe to the view that it's only no publicity that's bad publicity). In responding to George Osborne, the chancellor referred to the Tories' use of our recent coverage of the non-domicile debate and our acknowledgement that figures we had used about the number of non-doms had come from a Sunday paper.
Normally journalists don't admit to this sort of thing – we did so because we knew the figures had a finger in the air quality to them. (A post by my colleague Alex Hawkes explains our thinking more on this one).
But it highlighted the degree to which the government has been put on the back foot on tax in the last fortnight. And it responded by, it has to said, following to an agenda very much set by the opposition. From non-doms (tick) to inheritance tax (tick) to private equity (tick), it felt a highly reactive statement. And it was.
'I can't remember such a baldly political pre Budget statement like this one,' said a Radio Five Live correspondent. Nor me.'
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