Guido knew that the structure of marginal tax rates following a decade of Brown’s insidiously stealthy taxation and redistribution was malformed. How malformed was only driven home after reading a note from the Centre for Policy Studies. It is obscene how this government has punitively taxed the middle classes…

The CPS use a simple not atypical example of a married man with two children, who has no savings or investment income, and no student loans. Factoring in allowances and changes to child benefit, his marginal rates will be as above. A middle-class single income family with 2 children and the father earning £50,001 will have a marginal tax rate of 59.5%. You don’t have to be a fully paid-up member of the Taxpayers’ Alliance to think that is far too much.

Next year will be the thirtieth anniversary of Nigel Lawson’s 1984 Tax Reforms. George Osborne says he is Lawsonian, if the Chancellor wants a legacy and the gratitude of the electorate, simpler, flatter, fairer taxes would be the right thing to do. It might win back the middle classes at the ballot box as well…