A mansion tax is back in political fashion – like skinny jeans, Lady Gaga and other uncomfortable but ultimately decent concepts from 2009.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is apparently working through the details of the new tax which could help plug the chasm in public finances caused by slower than hoped for growth and reversals of the winter fuel allowance and welfare savings.

Some say the hole Reeves has to fill could be as much as £50bn by the time the Budget comes around this autumn, others that it will be closer to £40bn – but what’s £10bn between friends?

With Reeves’s and Starmer’s absolute refusal to consider hiking the main taxes on working people (VAT, income tax and employee National Insurance contributions) she was left with few places to search for a solution other than property.

And so Reeves’s hunt through the hostile landscape of tax reform has finally led her to the right place. Going through with it – by ending the capital gains tax exemption on people’s main homes worth over a certain threshold (possibly £1.5m), and levying it at the usual 24 per cent for higher rate taxpayers or 18 per cent for basic rate taxpayers when owners come to sell – will of course be extremely unpopular with many who have benefitted from decades of rising house prices. Particularly those who bought modest family homes in the........

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