I couldn’t help being amused this week at the contortions that David Cameron and his spin doctors are going through to try and “de-posh” the Tory Party. Apparently Conservative candidates in Tory target seats have been told by “Dave” himself to shorten any double barrelled or posh sounding names to make them seem like ordinary folk. I see that Simon Radford-Kirby (Brighton Kemptown) now has dropped the Radford from his name and Scott Seaman-Digby, the Tories’ Commercial Director, now likes to be called Scott Digby in deference to his leader’s wishes.

Best of all was the redoubtable candidate for Somerton and Frome, the amazingly named Annuziata Rees-Mogg, who politely declined Mr Cameron’s suggestion that she call herself plain old Nancy Mogg. With Cameron’s inner circle dominated by old Etonians and plans to cut inheritance tax for the 3,000 richest people in the country forming the centre piece of Tory tax strategy, I can see why they are worried about looking like a bunch of over-privileged toffs with no clue how the rest of us live our lives.

No amount of spin, however, can hide the predicament of David Cameron’s multi-millionaire, old Eton chum Zac Goldsmith, who has been exposed as having non-domicile tax status - something the Tories are supposed to be clamping down on. Non-doms keep their assets off-shore to avoid income, capital gains, or inheritance taxes. Mr Goldsmith, in his role as Cameron’s environmental policy guru, is calling for more of our taxes to be spent on his pet green projects. Fair enough if he actually paid tax in the same way that the rest of us have to. As ever with these characters, it’s one rule for the rich and privileged and another for everyone else. I know I shouldn’t judge people on their backgrounds or their huge personal wealth, but rather on their ideas and their policies. Trouble is, they condemn themselves by their own actions.

I see that the Liberal Democrats are also performing somersaults over their so-called “mansion tax” which was to kick in on the homes valued at over £1 million. The announcement by the usually unflappable Vince Cable was greeted with howls of horror by Liberal Democrat MPs for Richmond and Horsney and Wood Green, where a million barely pays for the servants’ quarters. The new Liberal Democrat policy was announced this week and magically the threshold has now been raised to £2 million. Good to know that the Lib Dems are happy to re-write national fiscal policy on the basis of special pleading from two constituencies!

I expect we shall see a fair bit more of this nonsense from all political parties, mine included, as the General Election approaches. The level of public scrutiny now in place often means that party policy begins to unravel within hours of being published.