“For a nation to try to push itself to prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to pull himself up by the handle,” said Winston Churchill. Governments around the world have tried and failed to prove him wrong, confirming Einstein’s observation that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Adam Smith wrote more than 250 years ago that “to raise a state to the highest degree of opulence requires nothing but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.” Ronald Reagan joked, “I never had a tax cut I didn’t like,” or, by implication, a tax increase he liked. But from the perspective of the modern world, “history is a hoax” (Henry Ford) and the wisdom of the past must be forgotten.

Thus, in response to Great Britain’s high national debt (more than 100% of GDP) and the dire outlook for its finances, left-wing politicians, newspapers, think tanks and the Treasury have devoted much time and effort to the tax-rise fantasy game, compiling lists of taxes that they would most like to increase. . The causes of the British budget crisis are simple. Firstly, the government’s fiscal response to the Covid outbreak was blatantly irresponsible (but hugely popular at the time). Secondly, the lowest interest rates in history have facilitated extravagant public spending – witness HS2. Third, the slowdown in GDP growth since the 2008 financial crisis has limited tax revenue growth.