The Midge: Cameron goes on attack over tax as Osborne and Corbyn publish returns, fury over Edinburgh schools closures, poorest students snubbing loans over debt fears

Today

• Crisis meetings as 17 Edinburgh schools closed
• Cameron out to silence tax critics with Commons statement
• UKIP’s Farage will not publish return
• SNP criticised over number of Commons motions
• Poorest students snubbing loans due to debt fears

06.00 BBC Today headlines

Cameron to announce crackdown on tax evasion … Engineers inspecting 17 Edinburgh schools … Scunthorpe steel works saved … UN-backed ceasefire begins in Yemen … First of 27m pro-EU pamphlets sent out in England … Willett wins Masters.

07.00 BBC Good Morning Scotland headlines

Edinburgh schools ... Scottish Government urges other councils to check schools ... Cameron ... Stornoway fishing tragedy ... Scottish economy 'faltering' say surveys ... Former drugs smuggler Howard Marks dies aged 70 ... WWF says number of tigers in world increases for first time. 

Front pages

The Herald splashes on the closure of 17 schools in Edinburgh due to safety fears. Some were built and managed under a £130m public-private partnership programme. 

The National has an architect, Professor Alan Dunlop, warning some of the schools may have to be knocked down and rebuilt. 

The Evening Times has the story of a chronically ill patient at a Glasgow hospital who went home for a day at Christmas, only to have his room was cleared of presents. 

The Mail says Nicola Sturgeon will today publish a “pensioners’ manifesto” to tackle loneliness and poverty after a campaign by the paper. 

The Guardian reports that the new HMRC chief, Edward Troup, was a partner at a law firm that acted for offshore companies, including Blairmore Holdings, started by the PM’s father. HMRC said Troup had not dealt personally with BH. 

The Sun pictures the fisherman who swam for his life and made it to shore after a trawler sank off Mingulay. Two bodies have been found, one is still missing. 

The FT reports that the steel glut is here to stay, even after Chinese restructuring. 

The "daily mile" run could be extended to secondary schools, colleges and universities, says the Times, with Nicola Sturgeon due to give backing to it today. 

Camley’s cartoon

Hard hat on for Camley as safety fears shut some Edinburgh schools. Read the story here. 

Need to know

Nicola has done it, ditto Kez, Ruth, and Willie. David did it, eventually, Jeremy too, but Nigel will not (“In this country, says the UKIP leader, “what people earn is regarded as a private matter”). The Midge was going to join in with the spirit of the times and publish its tax return, but since it wasn’t exactly Al Caponesque in its newsworthiness, we’ll hold it back for a slow day. Today, with the PM having given a Commons statement on tax, will not be a slow news day. 

Mr Cameron went to the Commons after a week of indecision and a mea culpa before Tory activists on Saturday.  Besides taking questions on his own tax affairs, he announced a new bill to be published later this year. Read the report here. 

After the publication of some politicians’ tax returns, the focus now switches to two things: whether inheritance tax itself is right (the Daily Mail in England this morning splashes with the headline “Enough of this madness”), and who should publish their tax returns next. 

The SNP and Labour had been calling for all Cabinet members to do so, with their real target being George Osborne (above, on a schools visit). This afternoon, he duly joined the tax return publication crowd (read the story here). Why Osborne? Because the extent of his wealth puts him far above even Cameron in the financial pecking order. His shareholding in the family firm, the wallpaper and fabrics maker Osborne & Little, is a reported £4m, plus there is, like Cameron, a large house in London being rented out.

It has been uncomfortable enough for Cameron to have had to reveal his wealth, but for the author of austerity budgets to be confirmed as a very wealthy individual could be damaging in some eyes. Not least to his chances of becoming PM. 

Afore ye go

"Donald Trump is polling so badly with women that at a rally he had his wife, Melania, introduce him. Because if there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to get American women on your side, it’s a foreign model who’s married to a billionaire and never has to work."

Conan O’Brien. Darren Hauck/Getty Images

Another One Hides the Trust; Stairway to Tax Haven; Stuck in the Fiddle with You; My Old Man’s a Trust Man; Owing Me, Owing You; I Hid it My Way; Papa Don’t Leech…

Twitter had fun yesterday asking users to suggest songs under the hashtag #CameronTaxSongs. Above, Brian May of Queen. Raphael Dias/Getty Images

“One of his defects as a politician is that it is difficult to like him if you don't know him, whereas David [Cameron] is easy to like until you do.”

Petronella Wyatt ends her scalpel-sharp profiles of leading Tories with a look at one she admires - George Osborne, above right. Mail on Sunday. WPA Pool

“It was a decision worth of a Tyrion, the Game of Thrones character who Michael most admires.”

Ms Wyatt also has a soft spot for UK Justice Secretary Michael Gove, here referencing his decision to back Brexit. Above: Tyrion Lannister via HBO.com

"Pretty worthless propaganda”.

Former Tory Chancellor Lord Lawson’s description of the pro-EU leaflet being sent out by the government at a cost of £9m. A petition against the leaflet has 200,000 signatures. BBC Andrew Marr Show

“I have got the greatest faith in your objectivity, by the way Andrew, it's not an attack on you.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn suggests that journalists, as well as politicians, should publish their tax returns so people could see what “influences” might be at work. BBC Andrew Marr show. Above: the reaction in newsrooms, as foretold by Munch. Oli Scarff/Getty Images

“‘One thing I know, and any female presenters will know this, is don’t reveal any body part or bend over because freaks will freeze-frame it and put it on their nasty messageboards.”

Historian and TV presenter Lucy Worsley. Mail on Sunday. Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

"While campaigning in New York, Hillary Clinton rode the subway and had to swipe her metro card five times before getting through a turnstile. Though if you know Hillary Clinton, you know she'll keep trying until she gets in."

Late Night with Seth Myers. Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images

"There's a lot of old-fashioned misogyny on the hard left; you've only got to look at the comments about me during the leadership campaign. I was called a bitch, a whore, a see-you-next-Tuesday, as they say on Towie. All because my political views weren't the same as theirs.”

Labour MP Liz Kendall (above, right). Getty Images

"It took me 30 years to get it, but it's okay to be a late bloomer, as long as you don't miss the flower show.”

Jane Fonda says it was not until she was 60 that she fully “got” feminism. Sunday Times. Frederick M Brown/Getty Images

Diary

• Commons: PM statement on tax.
• Glasgow: University of Glasgow to announce details of £1bn campus development.
• Glasgow: Manifesto launch by Scottish Greens LGBTI+ group Rainbow Greens.
• Glasgow: NUS Scotland and National Society of Apprentices Scotland election debate with Nicola Sturgeon, Kezia Dugdale, Willie Rennie, Patrick Harvie, and Adam Tomkins. 
• Mumbai/New Delhi: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit India and Bhutan. 

Thank you for reading. See you tomorrow.