Don't make MPs publish their tax returns

Jeremy Corbyn's publication of his tax returns has fallen a bit flat amid arguments over whether he has declared all his earnings and declared them correctly.

If this discourages such stunts in future, I shall not be sorry.

As Simon Titley once argued, politicians have never been so open or available as they are now - and have never been so despised.

Equally, the idea that you will win if you are morally pure seems to me misconceived.

As I once wrote of the Liberal Democrats:

We should not be asking people to vote for us because we are better people or because we work harder than the other parties. We should be asking them to vote for us because we have good judgement and a convincing set of solutions to the problems the country faces.

I suspect Jeremy Corbyn's advisers think that people would turn to Labour if only they knew how wealthy the Tories are, but that sounds unlikely to me.

If there are problems over MPs hiding the source of their earnings then that should be tackled by beefing up the register of interests, not by making them publish their tax returns.