Could taxes on flights (and facelifts?) be a political battleground?

Fox may be firmly back at home and on the backbenches (and how many of you had winning bets on his departure – or Hammond’s arrival?), but the reverberations continue in today’s Sunday papers.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that Werritty received money from donors to “promote their political agenda but were furious to discover the cash was used to fund his lavish lifestyle” – and donors expecting to remain secret have now had their names made public. Meanwhile, Labour MP John Mann has asked the police to investigate whether Werrity committed fraud.

The Observer meanwhile focuses on the Tories’ links to the radical right in the US which have been exposed by the resignation, centred around Fox’s defunct charity, Atlantic Bridge:

…many of those who sat on the… board and its executive council, or were employed on its staff, were lobbyists or lawyers with connections to the defence industry and energy interests. Others included powerful businessmen with defence investments and representatives of the gambling industry.

Andrew Rawnsley contends that “he was not quite so entirely untypical as it would suit the prime minister to have us believe. Dr Fox has not been the only cabinet minister to give the impression that he believes that only “the little people” have to obey the rules”, while the Independent reports that Werritty was apparently involved in a plot to topple Ahmadinejad, as well as having links to Mossad.

Both the mid-market tabloids are concerned about new and increased taxes. The Sunday Express says that Osborne is considering a double-inflation increase in Air Passenger Duty which will lead to over 8 million fewer flights by Britons, while the Mail on Sunday highlights plans to raise £500m a year by putting VAT on cosmetic surgery – already dubbed the “boob tax”, which Sky’s Kay Burley says is “…an attack on women at what is an incredibly vulnerable time in their lives”. Could the Conservatives lose the facelift vote if the proposal goes through?

Finally, there’s been plenty of coverage of the protests around the world (more of these to come?) – while I was strongly in agreement with Barbara Ellen’s piece on the Joanna Yeates case: Real murder cases are increasingly being served up as another form of entertainment – and whose decision was it that the pictures of the interior of her flat should be made public?

Double Carpet

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