Cameron's dithering over his tax release has damaged him

If only he’d had the common sense to “come clean” at the outset when the Panama Papers scandal first broke, he could have avoided many of the accusations that he had something to hide as he dithered from one position to the next.

Downing Street issued a series of statements, each one “clarifying” the previous one, giving the impression, wrongly, that the prime minister was up to his neck in tax evasion.

Those few days cost him dearly in trust and authority – although he has now, apparently, put the record straight, published his tax affairs, and fights to restore his reputation.

To be fair to him, Cameron takes all the blame himself for those few chaotic days. But surely he and his advisers are mature enough to have realised that unconvincing excuses and what appear to be half-truths, will always be exposed in the swirling maelstrom of politics.

None of this, however, appears to have convinced Her Majesty’s Opposition, who have awoken from a torpor, accusing the Prime Minister of a lack of integrity, alongside demands, from some quarters, that Cameron should resign. The issue now seems to centre on Cameron’s mother’s gift to him of £200,000.

The issue will come up in Parliament time and again. The Prime Minister regularly flattens Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at question time. Unfortunately for Cameron, although this is splendid theatre, it does not appear to win him many votes at polling stations.

• But all that is not the Prime Minister’s only current worry. He is also under attack – largely from his own side – over his decision to “misuse” taxpayers’ money to produce a 16-page leaflet, to be delivered to every household in Britain, urging people to vote to remain in the EU at the June 23 referendum.

How can the Prime Minister argue he cannot afford to give more money to junior doctors, nurses and other vital public servants, when he can suddenly produce this £9 million rabbit out of the hat for what has been termed a purely brainwashing exercise?

No wonder the Brexit supporters are fuming about this development. However, they console themselves by saying the Prime Minister must be quaking in his boots about “losing” the referendum if he has to resort to this kind of action.

A Brexit victory on June 23 could put David Cameron out of Downing Street, some two years before he had planned to leave.

It has not been a great week, the Prime Minister has said. But it could get a great deal worse.

• Those – mostly lawyers – who claim the British legal system has no peer and is open to all, should examine their consciences and get the facts straight.

How can it be fair, just or even legal that hugely wealthy “celebrities” can buy an injunction to keep their indiscretions out of the British press, a perk not available to 99% of the British taxpaying public? The ludicrous thing is that in the current case, the name of the individual is emblazoned across the US newspapers and can be found on social media.

Yet if British newspapers so much as hinted at who it might be they would be subject, no doubt, to a terrible punishment.

Justice Secretary Michael Gove should step in and put an end to this form of secret, behind-closed-doors “justice”. Quite frankly, it stinks.

One commentator wrote that the papers may not even report whether the olive oil used in this exercise was virgin or not.

We can hardly boast about the purity of our justice system, compared with many others across the world, when it is tainted like this.

• MPs recently accepted a 10% pay rise (don’t remind the junior doctors or nurses) yet their drinks in the many boozing outlets at the House of Commons remains heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

Nice work if you can get it.