Whose inheritance 'con'?

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Fraser Nelson at Spectator Coffee has a couple of posts up about the inheritance tax 'con' and how the doubling of the value of untaxed estates is not for real. This is supposedly because,  "Anyone with financial acumen (or a lawyer) will not benefit at all. KPMG have just been on the phone explaining it all to me and explain it here. “This change, although likely to grab headlines, is in practice only giving to most people what they already have,” says Carolyn Steppler, its tax director. Why? At present, couples can take out a zero-rate Discretionary Trust which in practise pools their inheritance tax allowances. Only those who have not availed themselves of this would be helped by today’s announcement". Well, I resent the way I am talked about here. I don't have a lawyer but I do have some financial acumen, enough to have persuaded a bank to help with a mortgage at the bottom of the market, and I didn't know about zero-rate discretionary trusts. It sounds like cheating to me, and that what Darling has done is remove the advantage enjoyed by those with lawyers and given it to the rest of us fortunate to have a house and a family - as well as to all widows and widowers who were not in on the fiddle, a genuine tax cut for their beneficiaries. I agree that Brown has lost hugely in terms of setting the agenda. I am baffled as to why he played with the Iraq withdrawal figures when he went there, when his statement about bringing the total numbers down to 2,500 by May 08 went a great deal further than the 1,000. Indeed, I am not convinced he can recover and his consensus strategy is certainly in ruins. Nonetheless, on this one to accuse him and Darling of cheating when they are ending cheating won't go far.