ED BALLS will try to force government to re-adopt Labour's bank bonus tax later

The Labour Party will table an amendment to the Finance Bill this afternoon in the Commons in an unlikely attempt to force the government to repeat Labour’s banking tax.

Labour’s Treasury team, headed by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls says that the re-introduction of taxes on bloated bank bonuses would allow government to create up to 100,000 jobs for young people, finance the building of 25,000 affordable homes as well as enabling a cash injection to boost the regional growth fund.

Don’t worry, we’re assured that Alan Johnson has played no part in the maths, but we’re told that Labour’s number crunchers believe that this, combined with the permanent bank levy would raise at least £2 Billion this year.
No one will be surprised to learn that Ed Balls will also call on Chancellor George Osborne to reverse the VAT rise on a temporary basis, which he will tell the government frontbench should help to create and support jobs.
These are very nice ideas, but lets be honest, with a combined Tory, Lib Dem showing of 362 seats verses Labour’s 256, Chris Grayling has got more chance of succeeding Theresa May as Secretary of State for Equality than Ed Balls has of forcing these suggestions through… which might suggest to a cynic that what this is really about is scoring political points. But hey, that’s politics I suppose.