Or does it make Labour look weak?

So there we have it. Exactly eight days after the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, announces his inheritance tax plan to the conference and Labour Alastair Darling follows suit with his own scheme.

Would this have been in the Chancellor’s statement at all if the Tory plan had not given the party such a post-conference poll boost?

Does it all look so obvious? Is it actually an admission that we’ve reached a stage where the opposition is clearly setting the government’s agenda? Rather than shooting a Tory fox has the Brown government created a hostage to fortune?

The other Tory policy that’s been “nicked” is on the taxation of the so-called “no-doms”. Of course the detail isn’t the same but the principle is there.

From where I sit this look like an admission that Osborne was right last week and the whole package could damage Labour. Let’s see how it plays in the media and in the polls.

Mike Smithson