The tactics in the battle of Daily Telegraph v George Osborne/Greg Clark over the planning system are the equivalent of trench warfare. The ministers insist, day in, day out, that they will not budge over its planned changes. Introducing a new “presumption in favour of sustainable development” will help the economy to grow, they fervently believe.

On the other side we have the Telegraph, which agrees with charities who fear that the changes (a new ‘national planning policy framework’) are a licence for developers to run amok. Read more

I wrote a piece today on Labour’s attempts to exploit the Tories’ failure to connect with women voters. The piece highlights the coalition’s failure to help low-paid women cope with childcare as a major issue for the working mother. But during my research, another issue was brought up by Tory women: David Cameron’s marriage tax allowance.

It may be the Tory leader’s totemic ‘family’ policy but it is exactly the sort of scheme that chimes well with his old-style grassroots but does little to endear the party to the plight of the working couples.

Under the scheme as it was outlined before the election, a married couple only benefits if one person stays at home since the policy is based on one member of the couple being able to transfer £750 of their tax-free personal allowance to their partner to reduce the ‘family tax bill’. Eligible couples where the main earner has an annual income of between £7,300 and £42,000 will be £150 better off. Read more

This morning I wrote on the FT front page that Ed Miliband has been accused of “hypocrisy” for launching his moral crusade against ‘bad’ business while Labour officials are negotiating a £1m donation from Andrew Rosenfeld, a former tax exile.

Rosenfeld is also controversial because in 2005, during the collapse of Allders, he refused to accept responsibility for its £68m pension deficit despite his large financial stake in the retail chain – through a vehicle called Scarlett Retail. Read more

Ed Miliband wants to help “producers” and not “predators” through the tax system. And through regulation. This was one of the driving messages of his speech.

At face value it’s hard to argue with that. But where things become far from crystal-clear is when you start to think about the detail of how a government would go about doing this. Read more

Ed Miliband suffered a setback on his first day of the Labour conference after he failed in his symbolic attempt to reduce the relative influence of unions over future leadership elections.

A new cadre of “registered supporters” – thousands of members of the public who wants to influence the result – will have up to 10 per cent of the total vote, after a “Refounding Labour” document was expected to be passed at the Liverpool gathering. Read more

We’ve written a long piece in the main FT this morning about the widespread attempts in Whitehall to avoid FOI requests – by civil servants as well as special advisers. Texts, private email addresses, more phone calls, and inserting *s in the middle of key words are among the popular methods.

One anecdote didn’t make it into the newspaper and it seemed worth repeating: Read more