Hunt’s team is attempting to argue in response to the news that it is responsible for the highest ever increase in the tax-to-GDP ratio that the government has “taken 3 million people out of paying tax altogether since 2010 through raising personal thresholds”. To highlight the LibDem’s finest coalition achievement shows how dire the Tory record is on taxation.

Unfortunately, the former chancellor Rishi Sunak’s decision to freeze both the personal allowance and the higher rate threshold in 2021 along with Hunt’s two-year extension will do more than enough to make up for the 3 million kept of tax in the 2010s. The OBR calculates that in 2024 an extra 3.3 million people will have been brought into paying tax than if the threshold and allowance were indexed. The now 6-year personal allowance freeze has lowered its real value to its 2013 level. And in return for paying the most tax ever we get such brilliant public services…