This week's opinion

Fans of Yes Minister will remember that when Sir Humphrey wanted to block one of Jim Hacker’s proposals he congratulated the minister on his ‘courageous’ plan. That was enough to kill it. I wonder whether Philip Hammond now thinks that his National Insurance proposals were courageous? After all it is not as if the chancellor was unaware of the dangers in National Insurance reform. In response to the Office of Tax Simplification’s proposals on moving to a cumulative basis of class I National Insurance he said: ‘On the basis of the scale of change required I do not consider now to be the right time to make this major reform but I am grateful to you for bringing these issues to light.’ He added: ‘The government will therefore also look at how it can ensure that the taxation of different ways of working and different forms of employee remuneration is...