The Conservative Party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, has surprised many with a closing speech at the Tory Conference, which was well received . Badenoch did something few politicians ever manage to do: she used it to announce a policy that cut through – one that people will actually care about.

Were the Tories ever to be in power again, Badenoch said, they would abolish one of the UK’s most unpopular taxes: stamp duty.

Even more unusual still is the fact that Badenoch’s big idea has been welcomed by experts on both the right and the left. Among economists, there is now a consensus that stamp duty is a regressive tax which stops older homeowners downsizing – and penalises younger people for moving up in the housing market to larger homes.

As house prices have exploded and risen far abo

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