Tory storm over inheritance tax

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What’s driving the day in London.

By ELENI COUREA

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Good Thursday morning. This is Eleni Courea.

DRIVING THE DAY

THE FESTIVE LULL CONTINUES: Time to bolt the doors and crack open another box of Celebrations — Storm Gerrit is bringing more rain and gale-force winds to the U.K. after wreaking havoc in Scotland and the north of England on Wednesday.

Braving the storm: Rishi Sunak is traveling back to London from his Yorkshire constituency to work from Downing Street today. (The trains are a mess but Playbook hasn’t spotted any travel warnings for helicopters.)

Notably: The Times reported last weekend that the PM’s aides were hoping he’d take more than three days off over Christmas.

OVER IN NO. 11: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is drawing up plans for a March 6 budget. His first political challenge is to grapple with a Tory split over inheritance tax, after the Telegraph reported ministers were thinking of scrapping it entirely. Tory MPs Jonathan Gullis and Neil O’Brien said on X that the government should be targeting income taxes instead. Jason Groves now reports in the Mail splash that a proposal to cut the headline rate of inheritance tax from 40p to 20p is a “frontrunner” for inclusion in the budget. It has support from Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The topic also splashes the Mirror.

Weighing in: One Nation Chair Damian Green tells Ben-Riley Smith that Hunt’s No. 1 priority should be to help first-time home-buyers. Speaking to the Times’ Oli Wright this week, Leveling Up Secretary Michael Gove insisted the Tories would come up with a proper offer on this before the election.

Inevitably: Confirmation of the budget date (tipped by Playbook two weeks ago) has unleashed another wave of speculation about a spring election.

Eyes emoji: The Mail’s Jason Groves has an intriguing story saying that the PM has been warned by some on his side that waiting until the fall could cost the Tories a million votes. “The one convincing argument for holding the election in May is that a million households will not yet have been hit by higher mortgage costs,” a senior Tory tells Groves. “If you delay until November then you have got another million households paying hundreds of pounds a month more and some of them are going to blame the government for that.”

Playbook’s take: Evidently top Tories are divided on this. Tim Shipman reported in the Sunday Times a month ago that Isaac Levido — who is due to join CCHQ to run the Tory campaign full time next week — and No. 10 Chief of Staff Liam Booth-Smith are opposed to holding the election in spring.

IN LABOUR LAND: Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry is touring morning broadcast studios. Last night Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper criticized Sunak after his spokesperson said he considers the matter of James Cleverly’s rohypnol joke “closed.”

Exactly a year ago: Westminster went mad over THAT video of the PM asking a homeless person at a shelter if he worked in a business.

POLICY CORNER

NURSERY NEWS: Labour is drawing up proposals to create thousands of new nursery places in primary schools, Oli Wright reports in the Times splash. Expect the finalized policy to appear in the party’s election manifesto. Labour has long planned to make childcare provision a central part of its offer to voters.

INTERVENTION OF THE MONTH … goes to Amyas Morse, the chair of the new local government watchdog, also on the front page of the Times. Morse tells Oli Wright that it’s “quite definitely” the case that councils going bankrupt are suffering from bad management and not a lack of funds.

WAR CHEST: The FT international edition splashes a really interesting defense story. Sylvia Pfeifer and Eri Sugiura write that the order books of 15 of the world’s biggest defense companies, including BAE Systems, are near record highs with the war in Ukraine and other geopolitical tensions driving up sales.

Elsewhere: There were 12 payouts for bullying, harassment and discrimination by the Ministry of Defense this year compared with five in 2020-21. Labour got the stats via written parliamentary questions — the Times has the story.

DEPORTATION CHALLENGE: The Guardian’s Dan Boffey highlights the case of 28-year-old Briton Dmitry Lima who is in prison for drugs offenses and has been told that once he has served his sentence he’ll be deported to Portugal, where his parents came from. Lima has never been to Portugal or even left the U.K.

BLOW TO THE BARGE: Housing asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm barge has been ruled discriminatory by the government’s own review — though the document argued that the policy is still justified. The Guardian has a write-up.

Notably: For the first time in five years, there have been no Channel crossings by migrant boats over Christmas, according to official stats. Sky News has a write-up.

HOT AIR: No new plans for onshore wind have been accepted in England since the government said it had lifted the de-facto ban in September, according to Carbon Brief analysis covered by the Guardian.

**Vom Bundestag bis zu den Bundesländern – Berlin Playbook hat Ihre Politikberichterstattung im Griff. We’re coming to Germany – and bringing our award-winning journalism with us. Keen to get your daily dose of deutsche Politik before your morning coffee? Sign up here.**

TODAY IN WESTMINSTER

PARLIAMENT: Finishing off the cheese board.

SWORD AND SPOON: Brexiteer Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin is due to be knighted in the New Year Honors list, the Mail reports. The paper notes that “Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch is said to have pushed his candidacy.”

GRIM STATS: There have been nearly 30,000 recorded cases of rickets and scurvy across 78 NHS trusts since 2019, according to Lib Dem FOI returns written up by the Mirror … while the Sun has stats saying that more than 200,000 shoplifting cases went unsolved in the past year.

NO WONDER … the Times’ Oli Wright is reporting that the “happiness unit” set up by David Cameron’s government is about to wind up. James Kirkup has written an op-ed about it.

STRICKEN BY STRIKES: Nearly 88,000 NHS appointments had to be canceled because of last week’s junior doctor strike in England — the BBC has the stats. Junior doctors are walking out for six days next week, the longest NHS strike in history. And RCN boss Pat Cullen warned on Wednesday that there could be more nurses’ strike over pay next year.

MOGGMANIA: Imperial measurement-aficionado Jacob Rees-Mogg has been voted backbencher of the year by ConHome readers. He beat the New Conservatives’ Miriam Cates by just 3 points.

LORDS A’LEAPING: My colleague Annabelle Dickson has a fun round-up of the House of Lords’ best (read: most ludicrous) moments this year.

Latest contender: The i’s Jane Merrick reports that only now are peers being given social media training and guidance — 18 years after Twitter launched. The average age in the Lords is 71.

Quote of the day: Tory peer Ed Vaizey, who has been tweeting since 2008, tells the i: “The guidance is perfect but I am concerned at some significant gaps. How does one post a meme? What emojis are appropriate. When will the Lords have their own emojis? Can you troll David Cameron?”

ON THE GOVERNMENT GRID: DHSC is launching a stop smoking campaign for January … and Defra is consulting on plans to make it easier for households to recycle electrical waste, such as Christmas lights.

On the Labour grid: An FOI-obtained memo from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau suggests most fraud in the U.K. is perpetrated by overseas gangs — here’s PA’s write-up.

BEYOND THE M25

IN GAZA: Israel’s ground offensive shows no sign of slowing down and is now targeting Palestinian refugee camps in central Gaza — via the BBC. Heavy fighting is continuing to the south in the city of Khan Younis.

On the Israel-Gaza war: Anshel Pfeffer has a piece in the Times looking at how Benjamin Netanyahu is losing the confidence of the Israeli people and the country’s political and military establishment.

IN THE US: Michigan’s Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by voters in the state seeking to disqualify Donald Trump from next year’s presidential primary — via my Stateside colleagues.

IN TAIWAN: The BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes has a curtain-raiser on Taiwan’s nail-biting presidential election on January 13.

**Grab your skis, winter jacket and Global Playbook – you’re coming to Davos with us. Listen in on the inside chatter of the World Economic Forum with our global newsletter, anchored by Suzanne Lynch. Be in the know – and never miss a beat. Register here.**

MEDIA ROUND

Emily Thornberry broadcast round: GMB (7.20 a.m.) … LBC (7.45 a.m.) … Sky News (8.10 a.m.) … TalkTV (8.35 a.m.) … GB News (8.50 a.m.).

Also on Sky: Former Theresa May economic adviser Giles Wilkes (8.40 a.m.).

Also on GMB: Former Tory SpAd Salma Shah and JOE political correspondent Ava-Santina Evans (6.30 a.m.).

Today program: Tony Juniper, head of Natural England (7.12 a.m.).

TODAY’S FRONT PAGES

POLITICO UK: 10 times the Lords were ludicrous as we leap into 2024.

Daily Express: Dame Esther’s ‘Precious Xmas full of smiles.’

Daily Mail: Hunt plan to slash death tax by half.

Daily Mirror: Rishi helps the rich get richer.

Daily Star: Storm Gerrit chaos.

Financial Times: Post Office probe hears of aggressive legal tactics.

i: Homes bought up for axed HS2 rail line are rented out for millions.

The Daily Telegraph: Travellers told to delay plans amid storm and rail chaos.

The Guardian: Domestic abuse survivors have lost trust in us — Met.

The Sun: Connor McGregor KO’d my parrot.

The Times: Labour will promise big expansion of childcare.

LONDON CALLING

WESTMINSTER WEATHER: Stormy and rainy with gusts of up to 37 mph, tops of 12C.

DON’T READ THIS: “Go easy on wine and cheese, say siblings with combined age of 496” (via the Times).

IT TAKES ALL SORTS: HMRC reports that 4,757 people (or “festive filers”) submitted their tax returns on Christmas day (h/t Jack Elsom).

TUNE IN TONIGHT: Quiz show champion turned Tory MP Aaron Bell is making his small-screen comeback after more than a decade by appearing on Only Connect, which will air on BBC2 at 8 p.m.. The Mirror’s Mikey Smith spoke to him about it.

WRITING PLAYBOOK FRIDAY MORNING: Eleni Courea.

BIRTHDAYS: Former Labour MP Joan Ruddock turns 80 … Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath MP Neale Hanvey … Tory peer Helen Newlove … NHS England Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer Julian Kelly … Sadiq Khan spinner Jon Weisgard … Ta Nea London correspondent Yannis Andritsopoulos … former Telegraph Editor Max Hastings … former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley.

PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editor Zoya Sheftalovich, reporter Noah Keate and producer Seb Starcevic.