Prime Minister bows to pressure from junior coalition partner but 'very much' hopes party will back him to seek re-election

Lunch on Tuesday with one of our biggest investment funds came to life when I asked when we might expect shareholders to worry enough about the damage to corporate reputations to vote against boards which pursued aggressive tax-avoidance strategies.

Officials have said that the bloc loses €1 trillion a year through tax dodging

Outlook Who says politics is boring? There was another entertaining session of the Public Accounts Committee today as Google's Matt Brittin received a fresh savaging from the chair Margaret Hodge over the internet giant's tax avoidance. The climax came when Ms Hodge told Mr Brittin: "I think you do do evil". The spanking followed revelations about Amazon's minuscule corporation tax bill earlier in the week. How Ms Hodge must have wished she'd been able to give Jeff Bezos a tongue lashing too.

Amazon may employ thousands of people in the UK, but its European headquarters is in the tax haven of Luxembourg, where it employs several hundred staff.

Now Google is in spotlight as MPs are told how whistleblowers exposed tax affairs

Opponents say changing the law could put vulnerable people under pressure 'not to be a burden on others'

World's largest online retailer under renewed pressure to pay corporation tax in Britain

Terry Devon was an award-winning British vocalist of the 1940s and early 1950s who was known as much for her scat singing as for more conventional performances. As part of the Keynotes she was a resident singer on the BBC comedy series Take It From Here, but she retired to raise her family and to support her husband, the showbusiness manager and agent, Tito Burns.

Television

The Chancellor’s ambitions of rebalancing the economy were dealt another blow today by official figures showing a greater-than-expected deterioration in the UK’s trade balance in February.

OECD reports budgets are down by 4 per cent but Britain sticks to foreign-spending target

I rather fancy the idea of being so rich that you buy your own bank to look after your money rather than having to lie awake worrying that your high street branch is about to go bust on you.

It overtook eBay as the preferred marketplace for traders to use to sell their goods. But online retailers may be soon returning to eBay in droves after Amazon put up its fees for traders by as much as 70 per cent.