Labour and Reform are both playing pie-in-the-sky politics. But who will get custard on their face? - Nigel Nelson

Politicians who have their heads in the clouds should remember that those who vote for them have their feet on the ground.

Both Labour and Reform have been guilty of silliness of late. Labour with a scheme to take from the poor and Reform with one to give to the rich.

Reform’s plan to offer wealthy non-doms a £250,000 ‘Britannia card’ so they can dodge paying income and capital gains tax on foreign earnings and avoid inheritance tax is a neat idea.

Especially as the proceeds could be worth up to £1,000 to the lowest 10 per cent of British earners, which Nigel Farage would give them at the end of the year as a Christmas present.

It’s got all the outward hallmarks of the sort of deft move Farage excels at - finding things to bridge traditional political divides to make both Labour and Tory voters happy.

But delve into the lack of detail, and you immediately hit problems. For starters, it will only work if non-doms doff their caps and rush to sign on the dotted line. They may not.

Even Reform’s policy document admits that the 74,000 non-doms living here only paid an average of £120,000 in tax before Labour whacked them. Which means it will take more than two years before their Britannia cards show a profit.

And as Reform wants to abolish inheritance tax for everybody, the non-doms might think £250,000 a hefty price to pay for something they would get for free anyway.

If Reform does keep IHT after all, then native Britons facing multi-million pound death duties, farmers say, would resent foreigners much richer than themselves escaping with a knockdown price.

And what about those low earners looking forward to a handsome windfall? How will that work then? Will the money also go to a well-off household where one partner earns peanuts but the other is raking in six figures? Where would be the fairness in that?

That’s before we take into account the cost of this, estimated by tax expert Dan Neidle at £34billion over five years. Some non-doms have left because of Labour, but lots more remain, and they will be entitled to this tax break, too.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer is running into trouble with his plan to snaffle £5billion from the disabled disguised as welfare reform.

Figures are a bit all over the place because there have been no impact assessments or analysis by the Office of Budget Responsibility, but there are predictions that 250,000 people will be thrown into poverty, including 50,000 children.

Not getting the OBR involved, you might remember, is what did for Liz Truss.

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Welfare does need reform, and what the PM should have done is launch an in-depth review to find out how best to do it.

He needs to know exactly who can work and who can’t before he gets his abacus out to see how much money he can save.

There is only one job opening for every seven people on health-related Universal Credit, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. That rises to one in 26 in Middlesbrough.

JRF’s senior policy wonk, Abby Jitendra, said: “Cutting disabled people’s benefits won’t magically create suitable jobs.“

Our new analysis adds to the growing evidence that few people will actually find employment as a result of the changes.”

A proper government study would show why people are not working. Could NHS waiting lists be partly to blame for those stuck in a queue seven million long? Or are doctors overdiagnosing illness as Health Secretary Wes Streeting has suggested? Or are we all just getting sicker? And if so, we need to know why.

For example, in the 1940s, one in 2,500 people were diagnosed with autism. Nowadays, one in 100 is. There could be one of three reasons for this, and we should find out which it is.

Either there are more autistic people in 2025 than there were in 1945. Or there were always the same number, and doctors are better at spotting them. Or too many are being diagnosed with the condition.

More than 120 Labour MPs, led by the sensible chair of the Commons Treasury Committee, Meg Hillier, have tabled an amendment to next week’s vote calling for a delay to get answers to these questions.

In Parliamentary language, it’s called a “reasoned amendment”. And the most reasonable thing Mr Starmer could do is accept it.

The pie-in-the-sky politics politicians indulge in are often made of custard. And we all know what happens with custard pies. They hit you in the face.