Memo to GB...

Dear Gordon,

What to do next:

1) The Numero Uno task is to ensure last week's fiasco is a blip rather than a ‘paradigm shift’ from your otherwise successful handover and three months’ worth of good government.

2) Use Monday’s Commons statement on Iraq to emphasise ‘Statesman Brown’. Project “business as usual”. Diffuse the situation. Concentrate on the Big Picture. Difficult for the Tories to make much hay on grown-up foreign affairs.

3) Use the Pre-Budget report on Tuesday to announce a fresh look at non-domicile status, with a view to a light fleecing of these tax-dodging parasites. Yes, it’s dancing to the Tory tune; but it’s a bit too weird to be outflanked by them on this issue. May as well take all the humiliation in one week.

4) In the longer run, this will help give both barrels to the Tory fox. Squeezing the “Non Doms” – and thus spending George Osborne’s nest egg on something socially useful - will blow a complete hole in their spending plans.

5) Get ready for a bruising PMQs on Wednesday. Need to inject a bit of spark into proceedings and knock seven bells out of Cameron at the start of a new term. This will help draw a line under the current shambles. A few good jokes are needed, especially after the telephone directory Leader’s speech a fortnight ago. Something self-deprecatory would be good.

6) Longer term there needs to be a more general debate about the role of taxation, as urged by Will Hutton in this morning’s Observer. It’s an ill omen that a Tory sop to allow near millionaires to avoid inheritance tax should be seen as a Great National Scandal and bounce The Evil Ones in the polls. The failure to popularise issues around taxation and fairness over the last decade has been a big mistake and is now coming home to roost.

7) Hopefully the hubris of the past few weeks will now be purged from the system and people who really should know better will knuckle down to business, learn the lessons about allowing speculation to get out of hand and avoid any silly repetition the future.

Yours in supplication,

WCH