Mr and Mrs Balls are paid by the taxpayers quarter-of-a-million a year between them, yet so hard done by are they that they still claim a package worth tens of thousands extra in mortgage subsidy on top. They own two homes and with the CGT reforms dreamt up on the back of an envelope after George Osborne promised to slash IHT, they will be voting themselves a handy reduction from 40% to 18% on property capital gains. So the constituency and London home owners who already benefit from a tax-free allowance worth £40,000 annually to pay their mortgages, will vote themselves a nice little bonus tax cut. They will then be able to sell their taxpayer funded second home and only pay the reduced capital gains – a 55% tax cut for MPs.

Somehow Guido doubts that kind of package will be offered to ordinary young families who don’t vote themselves the nomenklatura benefits available to the political class. Fairer and more effective packages? They are having a laugh…