An announcement arrives from the Chartered Institute of Taxation. The body, the release says, has decided to give its annual 'Challenge the Chancellor' award to Malvern Girls College.

Schools were asked to name a new tax and why they would introduce it. Malvern suggested a nappy tax, to encourage parents to use environmentally-friendly non-disposable nappies.

Congratulations to Malvern, who now get to receive an award from the paymaster general Dawn Primarolo at the House of Commons tomorroe (and if you're reading, I've got a whole lot of questions for the minister that might be worth asking her...).

What I'm most interested in here, though, is the question: should the CIoT really be suggesting new taxes to introduce every year? Isn't that just putting ideas into Gordon's head?

And can we have a concurrent competition assessing which taxes should be dropped?