10/09/2010 | Coalition | Tax | Retired leaders | Pope's UK visit

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This week on Politics UK with Edward Stourton: Testing Britain's coalition to breaking point: can it survive the cuts to come and the compromises expected? And how will changing the voting system test the new partnership? We speak to Conservative MP George Eustice, who used to work for the Prime Minister David Cameron, and his coalition partner Julian Huppert MP of the Liberal Democrats. This week taxpayers of the world united at the Taxpayers' Conference in London to fight the taxing tendencies of hard-pressed Governments. We speak to one of the speakers, Dr Arthur Laffer, who advised Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. He uses the 'Laffer curve' to argue that if you tax too much, government revenues actually fall. Tony Blair's memoirs launch his new career as an international statesman. Is power moving to a new global elite of former world leaders? We speak to Giles Edwards who is writing a book on the subject, and Iain Martin of the Wall Street Journal Europe. And can Britain benefit from the Pope's first state visit? The former Arcbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, thinks it can.