91Èȱ¬

It is a big idea, a grand ambition summed up in a resonant phrase - the national care service.

There is, however, still no plan to realise that goal within the foreseeable future.

In a giveaway phrase the Health Secretary about taking "the momentous decision to say in principle" that the cost of paying for social care should - like the NHS - be met on a population-wide, risk-sharing basis.

Mr Burnham insists that he's taking steps on "the journey" to making that principle a reality, including plans to pay for the care at home of those in the most severe need and today's pledge to meet the costs of those in residential care after two years. But it is quite a journey. If Labour is re-elected there will be a commission (another one) to agree the vexed question of how to fund social care in England. In order to reassure voters scared by Tory posters warning of a "death tax", ministers have decided to pledge that the idea could not become law in the next Parliament.

The "death tax" is not, in fact, dead but it has been reduced to an option to be considered by a new Commission whose proposals would not become law until after a second election - in other words not until after 2016.

The Tories reject the idea of a compulsory tax arguing, instead, for a voluntary £8,000 insurance levy which would cover the costs of residential care but not care in the home. Critics highlight their lack of ambition compared with the scale of the challenge as well as the fear that this is an option that would only be taken up by the relatively well-off.

So, what we have today is an important clash of principles - an unspecified universal tax to pay for care you might not need versus a voluntary levy, which many might not choose or feel able to afford to take up, leaving them still vulnerable to losing their savings and their homes.

The fashionable cry is for politicians to simply stop bickering and get on with coming up with the answer. I look forward to those people lining up to volunteer to pay thousands of pounds in tax - whether before or after their death, whether as a voluntary or compulsory levy.

There is a reason this is an issue that has yet to be resolved. It's hugely expensive, very complex and voters don't much like being asked to pay for something they might not actually need.

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• - What's this?

It is the political equivalent of a three-card trick - .

There's no doubt that each of the cards the Conservatives played today is electorally popular.

The question is whether Labour and the Lib Dems can convince voters that, taken together, the promises are indeed a trick because they are to be paid for by a promise to simply cut unspecified government waste.

"The government 'efficiency drive' is one of the oldest tricks in the book. The trouble is, it's nearly always just that - a trick".

Those are not my words but those of David Cameron who used the argument to defeat those in his party who pressed him to pledge what he always described as unfunded tax cuts.

His shadow chancellor insists that given that two renowned government waste-busters have signed off their plan this promise of a tax cut cannot be described that way.

Whoever you believe, there's no doubt that today's announcement is very different from and the pledges of pain to come at the last Conservative Party conference.

Perhaps that should come as no great surprise. Since then the Conservatives have slipped in the polls and two-thirds of voters told one poll that they believed that the national debt could be paid off by the government if, you guessed it, they spent money more efficiently.

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A tax cut for seven out of 10 working people and for many businesses too, plus a start to cutting the deficit.

Today that they can do all of that on coming to office.

The shadow chancellor George Osborne will pledge to block not all but a part of what he has dubbed a "tax on jobs" and "a tax on the middle classes" - the planned 1% increase in national insurance contributions due to hit both employers and employees in a year's time.

To pay for this and an immediate cut to the budget deficit, he will outline proposals to cut government spending plans this financial year - cancelling some projects whilst pledging to reduce waste and cut the cost of procurement.

He believes that the chancellor scored a political own goal when he announced in his Budget that there were billions to be saved in so-called efficiencies whilst insisting that it would be wrong to spend less now.

The Tories' opponents are sure to respond by claiming that the opposition's sums don't add up - that pledging lower taxes whilst cutting the deficit faster can only be paid for by dramatic cuts in spending which they've so far refused to spell out.

This could trigger an intriguing political role reversal.

Up until now, the Tories have traded on Gordon Brown's unwillingness to confront the public with the truth about the public finances - his talk of Labour investment versus Tory cuts, his long refusal to use the "C" word and his clashes with his chancellor.

However, that was before Alistair Darling boasted of delivering and admitted that spending cuts would be "deeper and tougher" than under Margaret Thatcher. It was before he was rewarded by the man who once planned to sack him with a promise that he would stay as chancellor should Labour win the election.

In tonight's televised debate between the men who would be chancellor, stand by for Alistair Darling to claim that it is he who is being careful, cautious and candid whilst his opponent is making "reckless" promises.

In reply, Osborne is likely to argue that he and the Tories can be trusted to get more for less from government after years of Labour tax, waste and spending.

It's an argument that will define and could determine the result of the election.

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The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"
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Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

The independent think tank, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, has noted that that total public spending increased by an average of 1.1% a year in real terms over the Thatcher era. This is almost three times the increase of 0.4% a year that Alistair Darling has pencilled in for the next Parliament.

The IFS went on to observe that:

"[I]f we subtract spending on welfare and debt interest then we estimate that the rest of public spending would be cut in real terms by an average of 1.4% a year compared to an average increase of 0.7% in the Thatcher era. We have not seen five years with an average annual real cut as big as this since the mid-1970s."

As the Conservatives wish to make bigger spending cuts than Labour, they have already accepted that they would have to be tougher than Margaret Thatcher.

Update 1753: This is not the first time the chancellor has caused a stir by accepting reality. It has not always been comfortable for him. After he observed that the world faced the worst economic crisis for 60 years, he says the "forces of hell" were unleashed on him.

The problem Labour has, of course, is that while what Alistair Darling says is true, it is also totally at odds with the message the party is giving to the electorate.

Voters are being asked to focus on so-called efficiency savings in dull things like IT, procurement and reducing staff sickness rates. Few actual cuts have been spelled out beyond the budget squeeze in universities which the chancellor sought to lessen in his Budget. The reality, of course, will be job cuts, real pay cuts and freezes and service reductions in the public sector.

Meantime, tax rises on the rich are being put up in lights while the fact that every basic-rate taxpayer will soon be paying more is downplayed.

The chancellor - who is by instinct straight - has learned the lesson from the prime minister's denial of cuts last year and can point to plenty of occasions when he has warned of how tough things will be and has set out figures and policies.

Nevertheless, all the polling suggests that few voters recognise the facts, believing something which no politician argues: that the deficit can be dealt with by efficiency savings alone.

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There is no need for a Budget.

That was the word coming from inside the Treasury before today. Their point was that the big decisions on tax had already been taken - in December's pre-Budget report - whilst the big decisions on spending - had been postponed until later in the year.

That's why today was very short of significant economic announcements and very long on political positioning.

The one rabbit the chancellor pulled from his Budget hat was not a policy but a statistic showing lower than expected borrowing figures - a cut of $13 billion next year. He will hope that this will help silence those who fear that the deficit is out of control.

However, look at the Treasury Red Book of Budget statistics and you see how hard it's been for the chancellor to find any money to spend.

The cut in stamp duty is only temporary - for two years - whereas the rise of stamp duty for more expensive homes appears to be permanent.

The departments of business and transport appear to be having their budgets cut by £475m. Asked on 91Èȱ¬2 how he was cutting his budget Lord Mandelson refused to say but promised a press release later this afternoon.

Until we see the announcements about where and how Whitehall is saving the promised £11bn of efficiency savings it will be too soon to judge the Budget in the round.

In truth, we need to see the much bigger spending cuts which will be made later in the year. There is now no chance of that.

What we can see, however, is Labour's two key pre-election arguments.

The first is that government is a "force for good" - hence the promise of a £2.5bn one-off growth package paid for by switching spending and the bonus tax.

The second is the familiar New Labour mantra of "for the many, not the few" - hence the promise of a stamp duty cut for first-time buyers paid for by the rich and increased help with social care paid for by increasing inheritance tax.

We now need an election to see whether the country agrees.

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The politics of the Budget is already clear.

Government is a "force for good" and "should not stand aside'" the chancellor says.

He is unveiling a $2.5bn one-off "growth package" and what he calls help for those who need it - the stamp duty cut for first time buyers and, I predict, an increase in the winter fuel allowance too.

All of which he will, no doubt, claim would have to be scrapped by the Tories who - he will suggest - are ideologically committee to cutting back the size of government now.

Update 12:59: The chancellor has confirmed that he has pinched George Osborne's proposal to scrap stamp duty for first time buyers but there was a sting in the tail for the Tories.

He says he'll pay for it by increasing the cost of moving for the rich by increasing stamp duty on houses worth over a million. No doubt someone in the Labour Party will soon be calling it the Notting Hill tax.

He had to say something about how he's paying for it since in October 2007 the chancellor condemned the "irresponsible promises on tax" the Tories made when they first proposed it.

Update 13:05: Next in the chancellor's list of election dividing lines is a promise of money for social care paid - as yet unspecified - by increasing inheritance tax (by freezing thresholds for four years).

The theme is clear - help for the many versus help for the few.

Update 13:08: The biggest rabbit the chancellor has pulled from his Budget hat is lower than expected borrowing next year. It's forecast to be £13bn less than predicted in the pre-Budget report. His message to the country is "don't worry we're sorting out the deficit".

Update 13:30: Pursuing his "many not the few" theme the chancellor has just delighted Labour MPs by announcing a tax agreement with Belize to target Tory billionaire donor Lord Ashcroft.

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• - What's this?

How can a Budget that time and again has been have things to give away?

I understand that Alistair Darling will announce the scrapping of stamp duty on house sales below £250,000 - limited to first-time buyers - and the phased introduction of a scheduled fuel duty rise.

He is expected to announce what he'll call "a growth package" to help small business, promote innovation, invest in national infrastructure and key skills. Reading the runes my colleague Robert Peston is predicting new tax breaks for companies. The Treasury have already confirmed plans to create a Green Investment Bank with up to a billion pounds of government money to spend.

So, where will the money come from?

Alistair Darling will unveil lower than predicted borrowing figures thanks, in part, to lower than feared levels of unemployment. He will also switch spending within existing departmental allocations. Thus, he will say that he can do all of the above whilst staying on course to cut the deficit in half over four years.

So, overall - in fiscal terms - the Budget will not be a giveaway. The chancellor will present it as "balanced" between the need to stimulate growth and invest in the future
while tackling the deficit. He will seek to contrast this with the Tories' approach of cutting now and cutting deeper and invite the country to give its verdict at the election.

What then about the take-aways? The huge cuts to spending which the Treasury's own figures state are coming very soon will not, of course, be unveiled today. They will be detailed after the election.

Although, talking of takeaways, I can't help noticing that a proposal to scrap stamp duty below house sales of up to a quarter of a million was first made by George Osborne at the Tory conference of 2007. You may remember that he also announced a plan to cut inheritance tax - an idea Alistair Darling also partially lifted.

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"Pure revenge plus". That is how one friend of the described the news last night.

The claim is that they are being punished not for what they said to a "lobbyist" on a hidden camera, but for what they did inside the PLP.

Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, you will recall, launched January's botched coup attempt against Gordon Brown. Stephen Byers has backed every effort to unseat his leader after the two clashed repeatedly in government.

The "plus" refers to an alleged attempt to cleanse the Labour Party of Blairites before a possible leadership contest if Labour loses the election.

The anger of the three - and their supporters - is increased by the fact that none has yet been informed of the suspension, let alone the reasons for it.

It is a claim that is furiously dismissed by the many Labour MPs who were outraged by the sight of former ministers appearing to want to trade on their connections and those who simply can't believe their stupidity at getting caught so close to an election.

It is, though, a warning of the fight that may lie ahead. Given that so many Blairites are retreating from the battlefield, and given the self-destructive behaviour of some, it is a fight they have almost certainly already lost.

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People have to ask what all the fuss was about.

when for the first time in 10 years he chose to answer fully rather than avoid questions about the friend, ally and multi million pound Tory donor who he put in the House of Lords.

Mr Hague insisted that Cabinet documents leaked to the 91Èȱ¬ which outline the negotiations that led to that peerage proved that there was "no secret Tory deal" and that the hurdle that Ashcroft had to cross to become a peer was "always about him becoming resident" - not, in other words, about his tax status.

The fuss is, and will continue to be, about the funding of British politics and not the precise tax status of members of the House of Lords.

Ashcroft has boasted that he might be this country's largest political donor. He has said that his heart is in Belize along, of course, with many of his millions. It was, therefore, inevitable that questions would always be asked about him and his role.

What's more David Cameron has called for an end to the perception that political donations can buy honours, favours or position and he's argued for transparency.

Only now - under pressure from Freedom of Information - are we seeing a steady flow of information which has been held behind closed doors for so long.

For 10 years William Hague has known that Lord Ashcroft had no intention of becoming a full UK taxpayer merely to satisfy the demands of his political enemies.

This despite the fact that, as Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hague had written to Tony Blair in 1999 to say that:

"Mr Ashcroft is...committed to becoming resident by the next financial year in order properly to fulfil his responsibilities in the House of Lords. This decision will cost him (and benefit the Treasury) tens of millions a year in tax yet he considers it worthwhile."

This morning Mr Hague conceded that promise to pay tens of millions more in tax should, perhaps, not have been made and might well not have been met.

How then could the former Tory leader and his successor, David Cameron, claim that they only finally learnt that Ashcroft was a "non-dom" in the past few months?

Simple - they never demanded the answer about his current tax status since they regarded it as a private matter and were satisfied that, despite claims to the contrary, Ashcroft had done all that had been asked of him.

It's clear that Hague deeply resented the fact that his friend was initially blocked for elevation to the Lords.

Today's documents confirm that in order to secure a peerage Ashcroft promised to become a "permanent resident". In negotiations spanning from May to June 2000 he persuaded officials from the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee and the Cabinet Office that he did not need to become a full UK taxpayer.

He could, instead, become a "long term resident" paying tax here on his UK but not his worldwide earnings. Hague was told all of this.

It's also clear that some, perhaps all, members of the Scrutiny Committee wanted Ashcroft to go further - by becoming a full UK taxpayer - the course implied in Hague's letter to Blair.

Ever since Ashcroft has told people in private that his tax status is none of their business; pointed out "non-doms" sit on Labour's benches in the Lords; he's given assurances that he's met the undertakings asked of him; and insisted that he would not give in to pressure from his enemies and what he describes as "the left wing media".

The result has been that in public the Tories have looked evasive and secretive about their principal funder - in other words "the fuss" Mr Hague dismissed this morning which has threatened to undermine David Cameron's four year mission to "decontaminate" the Tory brand.

The Tory leader's allies say that he deserves credit for reducing his party's dependence on Ashcroft and for, eventually, insisting that he reveal his tax status. They now demand that Labour reveals who are its "non-dom" donors and why Gordon Brown made Lord Paul - a "non-dom" - a Privy Councillor.

The moral of the story is that rather like MPs when it came to their expenses, Messrs Hague, Ashcroft and Cameron did not foresee the impact of Freedom of Information and the fact that it forces out into the public domain things that politicians would prefer never saw the light of day.

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He's political director of the union which has given Labour £11m since 2007.

His union pays the salary of one of Gordon Brown's Downing Street staff.

It's Westminster group of Labour MPs totals over 160.

It is highly efficient at ensuring that its supporters are selected as candidates for Labour safe seats.

He is Charlie Whelan.

It is Unite - the union at the heart of the British Airways dispute.

It is absolutely fair to describe the Labour Party as the political wing of Unite - that, at least, is what the party's former General Secretary Peter Watt has said.

I've been speaking to Charlie Whelan about that claim and the suggestion that he is Labour's answer to Lord Ashcroft - a suggestion that he himself has made in private for months. Whelan boasts about the fact that's he's countering the Tory peer's impact in marginal seats by organising a virtual phone bank in which union members are given the software, the scripts and money to pay for calls they make to other union members as part of an operation to get them to vote Labour.

Whelan insists that he is merely spending the voluntary donations of ordinary union members who - he says pointedly - all pay their taxes in order to prevent the election of a government which will hurt "ordinary working people".

Voters will have to decide whether they are moved by Whelan's description of his role or Watt's.

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Who would have thought it? the nation that Gordon Brown's deficit reduction plan doesn't go far enough.

It is not, of course, quite that simple.

The boys (and girls) from Brussels do criticise ministers for not being ambitious enough - they want to see the deficit cut by more, and sooner. However, they do not echo the Tory call for the government to "make a start" now by cutting spending this year.

After a nervous wobble induced by their warnings of an age of austerity, the new mantra at Conservative HQ is "It's the deficit, stupid". The Tories are nostalgic for the lazy hazy days last summer when they could claim that Gordon Brown was "in denial" about the need for cuts, was "taking the public for fools" and David Cameron would taunt him for denying reality. They promise they will be "honest" with the public and will go further after the Budget in spelling out what cuts they'd make in financial year 2010-11.

Their task may not prove so easy. Last autumn the prime minister was finally persuaded to use the "C" word - cuts - and to back "a plan" to halve the deficit in four years through a combination of growth, tax and largely unspecified spending cuts (see my earlier post). It's clear that the Budget will re-state that plan, flesh out the promised "efficiency savings" announced in the pre-Budget report and suggest that going any further would imperil the recovery.

Ministers will claim that it is the Tories who are being dishonest since they promise things without saying how they'll pay for them - such as "free schools" or marriage tax breaks - and refuse to say how much further they'd cut the deficit. Note how that the EU and, by implication, the Conservatives were calling for a cut of £20bn more than the £38bn already announced by the government.

Meantime, Nick Clegg warns that the wrong sort of cuts could lead to Greek-style public disorder. He's promising to spell out £15bn of the right sort of cuts before the Budget - although he's unlikely to repeat the call for "savage" cuts he made last autumn.

So, all main parties are claiming virtue and honesty. All, though, have veered and wavered on this issue.

Labour once denied that a problem existed at all and pretended that it could avoid cuts. Now they insist - against the advice of the EU and many others - that they're doing enough.

The Tories once promised to match Labour's spending, then called for an "age of austerity" before insisting that there would be no "swingeing cuts". They've given more detail than Labour but have left the public in the dark about how far they would go and with what consequences.

The Lib Dems once promised net tax cuts, then "savage" spending cuts, then a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts before now ruling out overall tax rises.

Before you rush to blame the politicians, take a look in the mirror. A poll out today suggests that 50% of people believe that the deficit can be dealt with without any impact on the public services. 75% say dealing with inefficiency will do the trick.

The honest truth about the deficit is that politicians are scared of the public who appear to be scared of reality.

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• - What's this?

That's how I felt when I heard that the Budget due in two weeks was not going to be a "big give-away". The news came from no less an authority than the chancellor himself - .

Given that the government is legally committed to making £57,000,000,000 worth of tax rises and spending cuts to deal with Britain's budget deficit, only the economically-illiterate could imagine that there was any scope for a big give-away budget.

So, what's interesting is the politics of this.

After months of tension between No 10 and No 11 about how open to be about the scale of the problem and the need for cuts, the government now has an agreed strategy.

First, it is to insist that massive borrowing was the necessary price of fighting the economic crisis. Gordon Brown told me yesterday that he would not apologise for the deficit. The Conservatives reply that, in fact, the deficit stems from irresponsible spending and borrowing leading up to the crisis.

Secondly, Labour wants to persuade voters - and the markets too - that they are acting responsibly and have a credible plan to deal with the deficit, while adding that Tory plans would be excessive and risk the recovery.

Thirdly, ministers are going to spell out how they will make promised efficiency savings of £11bn as evidence that they are capable of making the tough decisions necessary. Ed Balls has already begun to spell out cuts of several hundred million pounds which he'll make in order, he says, to protect the schools budget. The Departments of Schools, Children and Families and Health is being allowed to recycle any savings it makes, so only £7bn of these savings will be used to cut the deficit.

So, the plan is simply stated - if not simply delivered.

Labour are committed to halving the deficit - by an estimated £82bn - over four years.

They forecast that £25bn will come from growth (assuming a strong recovery in the years ahead), £19bn will come from tax rises - which have already been announced, but which have not yet been implemented - and £38bn will come from spending cuts - which have not been announced in any detail. £7bn of those cuts will also come from efficiency savings.

The chancellor says there is too much economic uncertainty to spell out the other savings he needs to make, but promises there will be a spending round this autumn (after the election).

Ponder this for a moment: Labour will go into an election planning - on their own figures - to make £31bn of cuts.

Now, of course, the Conservatives, who say that the deficit needs to be cut quicker, must be planning to cut even more than £31bn which they, too, have not specified (though they have announced plans for a wider pay freeze than the governments and a delay in the pensionable age).

Voters have two months to ask both parties for more details of where they'll find the money.

PS Today Liam Byrne, the chief secretary to the Treasury, outlined "the plan" on the Daily Politics and abandoned the usual Treasury caution. When asked by Andrew Neil if there might be a need for further tax rises beyond those already announced you might have expected him to say he could rule out nothing (given that forecasts can turn out to be wrong).

This is what he said instead:

AN: "Are you telling us that you can get to a 50% reduction in the deficit with the tax increases we already know about?"
LB: "Yep."
AN: "You don't need any more?"
LB: "No, we've set out exactly how we'll find that £19bn, and we set that out in the pre-Budget report."
AN: "So there will be no need to increase VAT to say 20%?"
B: "We don't see a need to do that because we've made some difficult decisions about National Insurance contributions."

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The prime minister didn't promise "blood, sweat, tears" or "to fight them on the beaches" but try reading this quote from in a gravelly Churchillian voice and you'll see what he was up to:

"We are weathering the storm; now is no time to turn back. We will hold to our course. And we will complete this mission. We have got through this storm together but there are still substantial risks ahead. There will be bumps in the road. And I believe the only way to overcome them is by displaying the same strength and resolve as we did during the crisis. I will not let you down."

The prime minister's pursuing the strategy of presenting himself as a modern day Churchill which I first outlined last September when I wrote that:

"For months now, party strategists have believed that Gordon Brown's best chance of holding on to power is if the election is held in an atmosphere which feels more like 1944 than 1945 - in other words, that the country must feel that it cannot risk changing its economic wartime leader. Otherwise, they've warned the prime minister, the electorate may treat him as they treated Churchill, saying, in effect, 'thanks for all you did but now it's time to go'."

Thus today Gordon Brown describes himself as "a crisis leader" and a man with the courage to "take the tough decisions and stick to them" who is willing to tell people "not what they want to hear but ...what they need to know".

This argument was not helped by the head of M&S Sir Stuart Rose, who yesterday suggested that what people needed to know was that the government would cut its spending now. He told the 91Èȱ¬:

"Our customer, Tesco's customer, Sainsbury's customer etc are not stupid. They know that the UK economy is in a difficult situation, they know effectively we are over borrowed and they know there is medicine to be taken. I am an advocate of having that medicine earlier and more regularly because we know if we don't take the medicine now the medicine will be more painful for us to take later."

When I interviewed Mr Brown this morning and put this quote to him it was the only time he looked discomforted.

Beyond the political positioning, this morning's speech contained three important arguments that will shape the debate running up the election:

• He claims it's necessary to keep spending now since the private sector cannot sustain recovery on its own.

• He argues that Labour, unlike the Tories will pursue an active industrial policy in which government creates the infrastructure the country needs - high speed rail and nuclear power - and partners the private sector in creating jobs in sectors such as the digital economy, biotechnology and advanced manufacturing.

• He calls for the same urgency shown by the world during the crisis to be demonstrated again so as to avoid a decade of sluggish growth and to agree a global levy on the banks.

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On the morning after the night before I find myself pondering why the Tories biggest donor is facing so much grief () when Labour's biggest donor, Lord Sainsbury, is treated completely differently.

Lord Sainsbury - the billionaire former chairman of the supermarket - as a distinguished and eminent former public servant when he and the Tory Lord Waldegrave produced a report about the need to invest in science.

David Sainsbury was made science minister by Tony Blair - a post he held for more than eight years. He has donated at least £12.5m to Labour since 2002 and, some claim, more than £16m in total.

Sainsbury is one of the country's biggest philanthropists who's said to have donated more than £1bn to charity. Friends of Ashcroft point to his charitable works creating Crimestoppers and collecting Victoria Crosses for a national collection.

So, Ashcroft is treated differently not because of the scale of his giving; nor because he's a political player; nor because he doesn't give to other good causes.

It's partly because he, unlike Sainsbury, is a "non-dom", though of course, he is not the only party donor to be a "non-dom" - they exist in all parties - or the only "non-dom" in the Lords - Labour's Lord Paul is also a "non-dom".

It's partly because he hid his tax status for almost a decade after being forced to give undertakings to secure a peerage which his critics claim he never met.

But the added factor which has made Ashcroft's position so explosive is the fact that he's made so many enemies - not just in the parties he's trying to defeat but on his own side where many resent him throwing his weight about and in the media too - thanks to his keenness to turn to lawyers to sort out his disputes.

Michael Ashcroft is passionately partisan, he's secretive (or, as he would prefer, private) and to quote someone who's worked with him "relishes in being bloody awkward. It's his only pleasure in life".

In public life you always pay in the end for making enemies.

Something which that other member of the "awkward squad" - Charlie Whelan of the Unite union - who's organising Labour's efforts in the marginals .

PS I see that Lord Paul now says he'll become a full UK taxpayer. That's sure to increase pressure on Labour to spell out which of their other donors are "non-doms".

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In an interview I've done with David Cameron he fiercely denies claims that he's been "too weak" to take on Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative Party's multi-million pound donor who revealed recently that he's not been paying full taxes in the UK.

The Tory leader told me that "the party is not in his (Ashcroft's) debt one piece" and insists that he's sorted out the Tory Party's finances.

He's referring, I'm told, to the paying back of a loan of £3.5m from Lord Ashcroft to the Conservative Party in March 2007. He claims that after "dealing with the debts of the Conservative Party. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and dealing with the debts of the country."

In his interview Mr Cameron claims credit for the fact that Lord Ashcroft answered questions last week about his non-dom tax status and the undertakings he gave when he was given a peerage ten years ago saying "it was done by me - right?".

I asked the Conservative leader several times whether Ashcroft might "get a job in your government?"

His replies surprised me. "I'm not naming governments or administrations", he said before adding, "If you ask Michael Ashcroft I think you'll find his interest has been in being involved in the Conservative Party, involved in politics - that's what he's been interested in rather than anything else".

Tonight a spokesman for David Cameron tried to clarify matters a little saying that "Michael Ashcroft has said that he is standing down as deputy chairman of the Conservative Party after the election to concentrate on his media and business interests. Under the ministerial code this would exclude him from holding a government post"

For those more interested in the arguments about policy than personalities, David Cameron also told me he wants "to build a new model for our economy.... where we start designing things, making things, selling things."

He was responding to into how to make the UK the leading high-tech exporter in Europe.

Cameron says that he will accept the majority of the Dyson report's recommendations which include paying off the student loans of science, maths and technology teachers and paying them more; backing high-speed rail, nuclear power and offshore wind power to demonstrate the country's ambition and re-focusing the tax breaks offered to companies to promote research and development.

The Tories have, in the past, promised to cut business tax breaks to pay for cuts in corporation tax. Dyson recommends keeping the so-called R&D tax credit but re-focusing it on high-tech companies, small businesses and new start-ups - a proposal which the Tories say they will accept. They will not spell out which other tax reliefs they would scrap to pay for their business tax cut.

TRANSCRIPT OF EXCHANGES ABOUT LORD ASHCROFT:
NR: If you become PM, will Michael Ashcroft get a job in your government?

DC: I haven't made decisions about jobs in my government for everybody - you'll not be surprised to know. What I would say is that anyone in my government would be - in the House of Commons or Lords - would be treated as a full UK taxpayer. That, you can be absolutely sure of. I was the first to move on that and the government have now taken up my suggestion.

NR: But if Michael Ashcroft pays taxes, there's no reason he shouldn't be a minister in your government?

DC: I'm not naming governments or administrations. Michael Ashcroft has taken part in building up the Conservative Party -.that's where his interests, I think, have lain.

NR: What persuaded you that this billionaire donor should be allowed to hide whether he paid taxes in Britain when other people have to be open?

DC: What Michael Ashcroft has done over the last few weeks is answer the questions that people have had. People have learnt three important things - firstly that the donations that he made are entirely legitimate and legal; secondly the undertakings that he gave at the time he became a peer and thirdly his tax status. I would put it to you that it's now time for the 91Èȱ¬ to go after the Labour Party and ask questions about their donors and where they pay tax. We have answered those questions some time before the general election and I'm very pleased we've done so.

NR: You said in 2006 that we should "clean up politics by ending the suspicion that money buys honours or influence". Unless you say that Michael Ashcroft won't have a job, do you not think that people will think "he's bought it"?

DC: No, no, no, I don't accept that at all. What people have seen from me over the past week is answers to the questions that needed answering: where does this man pay tax, what undertakings did he give and are his donations entirely legal? If you ask Michael Ashcroft, I think you'll find his interest has been in being involved in the Conservative Party, involved in politics - that's what he's been interested in rather than anything else.

NR: Finally, to those who say it shows that you were too weak to take on a very rich man?

DC: I don't accept that at all. The fact is some time before the election he has answered the questions about where he pays his tax - what his tax status is; he's answered the question about donations - that have been thoroughly been through and gone through - and he's answered the questions about undertakings given at the time of his peerage... I would just make this point... I would just make this point.

NR: The point is about you. I was asking about you.

DC: It has been done. It has been done before the election. And it was done by me - right? Let's get that straight. Let's get something else straight. When I became leader of the Conservative Party it was in debt to the tune of 20 million. That is now in single figures.

I have sorted out the debts of the Conservative Party. I have sorted out the funding of the Conservative Party. I have made it less reliant on a few wealthy people. I've broadened its base. I've paid off loans including a very large loan to Michael Ashcroft so the party is not in his debt one piece. That is what I've done - dealing with the debts of the Conservative Party. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and dealing with the debts of the country.

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Imagine if at the turn of the year I'd predicted what Gordon Brown would face in the first few weeks of 2010.

First, a coup attempt organised by former cabinet ministers with the encouragement or acquiescence of some in the current cabinet.

Then, well-sourced allegations that the prime minister had had to be warned about his behaviour towards his staff.

Next, the chancellor revealing that No 10 staff had helped unleash "the forces of hell" when he'd had the timerity to warn of the worst recession in 60 years.

Finally, a televised hearing re-opening questions about the Iraq war and whether, as chancellor, Gordon Brown had underfunded the armed forces.

If I'd predicted that my guess is that you - and I - would have forecast that Labour's poll ratings would drop even further. Instead, of course, they've risen.

One of the joys of reporting politics is that, for all the pressure to speculate, it is unpredictable.

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Compare and contrast.

The prime minister and the former prime minister.

The man who took Britain into war and the man who wrote the cheques for it.

of the building hosting the Iraq inquiry where Tony Blair had been smuggled in the back door.

Mr Brown expressed his sadness for the loss of life where .

The prime minister smiled at the waiting audience where his predecessor had avoided eye contact with them.

Gordon Brown's aim today appears to be to look and sound different from Tony Blair whilst simultaneously opening up no gap of substance with him and the decisions he took. "Everything Mr Blair did in this period" he said "he did properly".

As for his role as Chancellor Gordon Brown insisted that he'd funded every request the military had made. This despite the assertion by the former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Guthrie that lives have been lost due to lack of resource.

So, in summary Gordon Brown expressed no regrets about the decision to go to war and none about the financing of it.

Unlike Tony Blair, though, he did go out of his way to express sorrow about the loss of life.

PS In an earlier version of this post I said Gordon Brown expressed regret but in fact that was a word he carefully never actually used always speaking instead of "his sadness".

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Heavily prepared. Heavily made-up. that he strode into the Iraq inquiry before the committee itself had settled comfortably in their seats.

Again and again he spelt out his explanation of his own role often ignoring questions to the evident frustration of those asking.

It was like watching a skilful chess player who had a defensive move prepared for every possible attack. Yes Iraq had been the right decision for the right reasons but of course he had regrets.

As for those missing weapons of mass destruction he had believed the information he had been given by the intelligence services .

Financially he had given the armed forces everything they could have wanted and what's more he wished he had managed to persuade the Americans to take reconstruction more seriously.

It was only when Sir Roderic Lyne, the skilful former diplomat, pushed him on whether he had been told by Tony Blair what the then prime minister had told President Bush did Gordon Brown stumble.

Once again he avoided the question, so blatantly that this time the audience broke into laughter. Yet throughout this morning Gordon Brown will feel he has not made a mistake.

The big problem for him may come when the issue turns to money and the decisions around the Ministry of Defence budget which caused problems not so much in Iraq but later in Afghanistan.

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Sources have told the 91Èȱ¬ that the Electoral Commission has cleared as "legal and permissible" donations made by a company Lord Ashcroft controls, Bearwood Corporate Services.

The report, expected out later today, will be read carefully however for any possible criticisms.

I understand that, contrary to internet rumours, Lord Ashcroft is not resigning as deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.

Update, 12:20: We've been waiting many, many months for the outcome of the Electoral Commission's investigation into donations to the Conservative Party by a company called Bearwood Corporate Services which is controlled by Lord Ashcroft.

Doubts have been raised about the legality of those donations, the suggestion being that they might have been used to channel foreign money, in effect, to the Tory party against the law that bans that.

I have been told that that investigation, which will be published later today, will clear Lord Ashcroft's donations, clear the Conservative Party and that those donations will be described as "legal and permissible".

Now of course this is a detailed study that has taken around 18 months. There will therefore be a lot of careful study of the language that the commission uses because, although the donations may be legal, people will be very keen to know if the commission has any criticism in the report.

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If you landed from outer space today what might you make of the news that the three men who have a chance of becoming our next prime minister are to ?

You might ponder why it's taken more than 50 years since the widespread use of television for this to happen.

To misquote Star Trek's Dr McCoy, you might note that these are debates, Jim, but not as we know them.

After all, the prime ministerial debates will involve an audience that can't clap or cheer or boo or heckle. They will involve questioners who can't react to the answers they're given. They will involve TV interviewers who cannot demand answers to questions from evasive politicians.

What you would be ignoring if you focused on all that, though, is that the men who want to be in No 10 will be debating questions posed by voters at length and in detail without playing to the baying hoards on the green benches in the Commons or the noisy audience on Question Time.

You would be ignoring the fact that as well as the carefully timed one-minute answers and rebuttals there will be four minutes of free range debate possible for each question.

You would be ignoring what a big step this has been for a prime minister who doesn't like TV and a leader of the opposition who, as the front runner, had every reason to block rather than promote debates as David Cameron did.

Above all, though, you would be ignoring the fact that this agreement between Britain's main parties and main broadcasters makes history.

The leaders of the UK's main parties have agreed to boldly go where no man has gone before.

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Peter Mandelson's call on the House of Lord Appointments Commission to hold an inquiry into the Ashcroft affair looks set to be turned down. The committee are to tell him that they didn't exist when Ashcroft made the assurances which secured his peerage, they don't have the paperwork and they don't have the powers to hold an inquiry.

Guess what? If the first secretary had done a quick Google search for the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee he would have found a written answer from a colleague who reported that it is the government - or more specifically the Cabinet Office - which has the relevant paperwork.

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It is unpatriotic - the home secretary claimed - for the Tories to take so much money from a man who chooses not to be a full British taxpayer.

If so, all three of the UK's major parties are unpatriotic because they have all taken major sums from so-called "non-doms".

It is wrong, many say, and, indeed, it will soon be illegal to sit in Parliament making laws in Britain whilst avoiding paying taxes here.

If so, Lord Ashcroft is not the only one doing so. Lord Paul - a Labour donor - is also a "non-dom" and Gordon Brown promoted him to the Privy Council.

So, what then makes the man who thinks he may be the biggest political donor in British political history different?

In part it is because Ashcroft is a four-letter word to opponents who not only resent but fear both his money and also his role at Tory HQ where he's masterminding a hugely costly and ruthlessly effective campaign to target voters in the seats that could clinch the next election.

In part it is because for 10 years he and successive Tory leaders have dodged questions about his tax status.

In part it is because the only reason he's revealed it now is because the secret assurances which secured him a peerage after it was at first turned down were about to be revealed after a Freedom of Information request.

The questions about Lord Ashcroft will continue. They will only impact on the election though if it's David Cameron and not him who feels uncomfortable.

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At last. The truth is out. The man who's bankrolled the Tories for much of the past decade and has consistently refused to answer questions about his tax status has finally come clean. - in other words he's not been paying British taxes on his non-UK earnings throughout the time he's been central to the Conservatives campaigning.

Why, some will ask, does this matter? The answer is that Ashcroft is one of the biggest ever donors to a political party. Not only that but he now sits at the centre of the Tory election campaign directing his own, as well as other people's, money into a carefully targeted effort to win the marginal seats. Furthermore, he often accompanies the shadow foreign secretary William Hague on foreign trips.

Since foreign donations to political parties are banned, the Tories' opponents and the media have long sought an answer about Ashcroft's tax status. They've been met by Ashcroft's insistence that he's entitled to privacy and the party's baffling repetition of the line that he had assured them that he had fulfilled the assurances that he gave to William Hague when he was made a member of the House of Lords in 2000.

Now we know the reason for this obfuscation. In 2000, Ashcroft promised Hague that he'd take up permanent residence in the UK - as against Belize where his business interests are and where he's always said his heart is. Everyone assumed that this meant becoming a full UK taxpayer. Ashcroft now says that after "dialogue with the government" he was told officially that this could be interpreted as meaning becoming a "long term resident", not a full UK taxpayer. The Conservatives refuse to say whether they knew about this clarification or not.

Questions still remain about Lord Ashcroft's donations to the Conservatives which are being examined by the Electoral Commission. Since foreign donations are illegal, one key judgement will be whether the company he uses to channels funds to the Tories is seen as a legitimate UK trading company.

Questions also still remain about his wider role. Conservative officials insist that Ashcroft has "no role and no influence" in shaping Conservative policy despite his presence at William Hague's side when policy is clearly being formed.

For years when senior Tories were asked about Michael Ashcroft in private they have shrugged their shoulders and said "you know what he's like". What they mean is he's stubborn, fiercely protective of his privacy and unwilling to bend to the demands of those he sees as his enemies.

David Cameron's response to the questions about him has been to reduce Tory financial dependence on him; to promote a change in the law to bar non-doms from sitting in Parliament and, I assume, to tell him he'd be better outing himself before Freedom of Information or journalistic enquiry did it for him. Lord Ashcroft hints this morning that he's about to change his tax status so that he can stay in the Lords.

Labour MPs have long obsessed about the man they accuse of trying to buy an election in a country in which he does not even bother to be fully resident for tax purposes. Their attack is blunted somewhat by the fact that Gordon Brown made Sraj Paul - a Labour donor and non-dom - a peer and a member of the Privy Council.

appears to give ammunition to both sides in this argument. It claimed that Ashcroft's Tory HQ operation had channelled large sums into fighting campaigns in marginal seats - £6m over two years. However, it also showed that £5million of that had been raised locally.

When it comes to Ashcroft - you pays yer money, or rather he does (and lots of it) and you make your choice.

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