
By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982
* Improving tax receipts could give Alistair Darling an extra £13 billion for next week’s budget.
* The government will today announce plans to help local communities buy up struggling pubs.
* The Ashcroft affair is a vote loser for the Tories, write Martin Fletcher and Sam Coates.
* The next Tory poster campaign will attack the Prime Minister and carry a negative message.
* The Robin Hood tax’s time has come, writes Jeffry Sachs in the Guardian.
* Mandelson and Clarke: A “rumble in the jungle that could always go the whole 15 rounds.”


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