This morning on the Today Programme, John McDonnell reiterated Labour’s ambition to hike the tax on those earning over £70,000 this morning, in an attempt to squeeze at least £6.4 billion out of them. What they haven’t accounted for is the change in behaviour that such a tax on the more successful would cause…

Hiking tax on the most mobile earners does not make economic sense. Currently, despite Brexit, the UK is extending its lead as Europe’s ‘tech unicorn’ capital, and last year more venture capital for tech came to London than the whole of France, Spain, Ireland and Germany combined. Labour’s anti-success policy would end the UK’s status as a good place to bring your business.

This policy could be even more damaging and unproductive than former French President Francois Hollande’s ‘megatax’ on the rich, the now reversed hike saw French competitiveness fall and professional emigration rise, making London the sixth largest French city in the world. Brexit isn’t causing an exodus of the job creators, but there’s no doubt that a Labour government would…