By this time next week you will be digesting the budget, you lucky thing. Yet even before Rachel Reeves has commended a single damn thing to the house, her efforts have been written off as a “shambles”, from a “chaotic” government that is Labour in name alone. Which prompts the question: what is the leftwing alternative?

Because there is one, on which agreement stretches from Labour backbenchers to many of their opponent MPs and far beyond. Whether you listen to Zack Polanski or Zarah Sultana, the TUC or the YouTubers, they all call for a wealth tax – stinging the rich to pay for schools and hospitals. Who could be against such a thing?

Me, for one.

I am all for making the wealthy pay their way and, as a creature of warm blood and soft tissue, I delight in anything that winds up some of the worst people. There must be merit in an idea that gets France’s Bernard Arnault chuntering about “a clearly stated desire to destroy the … economy” – this from the plutocrat (estimated net worth: £139bn) who declared, “As long as I’m not the richest man in the world, I won’t really be happy.” Trust me, dear reader, this is a whole Radox bath of pleasure I am forgoing.

But still, I can’t go along with the consensus emerging around a wealth tax. It is too much of a muddle, not just financially or economically but also politically. As with so many simple and shoddy ideas, it polls beautifully yet smacks of dishonesty. If the wealth taxers seriously want to tackle big money and vested........

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