Our dream is his dream, what bollox

So, we have George Osborne, son of a Baronet, heir to the Osborne & Little empire, educated at St Pauls and Oxford, seeking to empathise with the family working long hours. "Hey, you stupid plebs, I am one of you, I also had to save every spare million my family gave me so that I could afford my first townhouse in Notting Hill. I, too, know how tough it is to get by on only two trust funds. Vote for me, I am just like you ."

Firstly, we have the proposal to abolish stamp duty (sic) for "almost all" first time property buyers. In the absence of any hard detail, it is not clear whether this is merely a proposal to raise the starting threshold for stamp duty land tax to £250,000, or a proposal to give first time buyers exemption from SDLT in a fashion similar to that now afforded to their counterparts in Ireland. The former would be simple to achieve and, doubtless, be a sop to George's pals in building up their portfolios of buy to let low grade housing stock in grubby, Northern outposts that they have never visited. The latter would be unobjectionable to the majority but would necessitate some hideously complex drafting if it is to be targeted properly.

Secondly, we have the abolition of inheritance tax for everyone who dies leaving under £1M. To the amazement of many, this will lift a whopping nine million people out of the inheritance tax net. Whilst some questionable sources are quoted in support of this figure of nine million, we would suggest that advisers reading this will automatically think of the more reliable sources which suggest that only up to 10% of estates are chargeable to inheritance tax. So, unless, the UK is now populated by somewhere close to 100M people, this estimate of nine million seems somewhat over inflated. On reading the Osborne speech, one cannot help but think that his writers are borrowing too heavily from the American dream, and relying on the aspirations of those gullible people who will never realistically be worth anywhere close to £1M but would, nevertheless, vote for death duties to be abolished just in case.

Finally, we have a proposal to introduce a flat rate Offshore Domicile Levy. On the plus side, we have a pragmatic acknowledgement that it is a fruitless task to police the non UK resources of wealthy foreigners residing in the UK, and something a bit different, no matter how ill thought out and pointless, makes a pleasant change from the more usual, anti-foreigner rant. It is, nevertheless, disappointing that the opportunity has been missed to promote some quality debate over what, in essence, amounts to the merits of the encouragement of foreign participation in the UK; and what that contributes to the UK economy in the way of investment, spending, job creation etc. Furthermore, it would cause us to question how sound the London [and UK] economy really is, and whether can withstand the loss of the foreign participation which, in theory at least, might flee if the generous tax system afforded to foreign domiciliaries was to be abolished or constrained.

Given the seemingly endless wait for some fiscal policy announcements, we could have hoped for something more sophisticated than this vote grasping drivel. At least, then, some decent debate might have ensued. Opportunity, aspiration, fairness. Surely, not even Daily Mail readers will fall for this superficial tosh.