The dog house

The first question that Rufus had for me when I got home on the evening of 9 October — well after 'what time do you call this the park's locked and what's happening about my walk' — was 'when are we leaving the country?'

This rather took me aback and it transpired that he was very upset by the Chancellor's new rules for those not domiciled in the UK.

As the son (surely 'pup'? Ed) of a Saluki and an Alsatian he has always considered himself one of the nation's 115 000 resident 'non-doms' his only problem is that as we do not know which was the mother and which the father there is considerable doubt about where he actually is domiciled; presumably either Saudi Arabia or Germany.

He still believes that one of his forbears was the favoured Saluki of a rich Saudi prince and that...