We are still four weeks away from the Budget and already we have had virtually every tax rise floated before us by Treasury leaks. This is presumably in the hope of managing our expectations so that if we think the Budget is going to be really, really dreadful, we will be pathetically grateful to Reeves when it turns out merely to be fairly dreadful. Is the Chancellor really intending to impose an annual mansion tax of 0.1 per cent of the value of every home above £2 million? It plays to the Labour gallery alright; maybe the idea has even come from the undead at the heart of the cabinet: Ed Miliband, who came up with a similar idea in his previous life as Labour leader in 2015.

This mansion tax is a pretty poor idea. There is a case for putting extra bands of council tax at the upper end,

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