A good suggestion from Eir Nolsøe, let’s just abolish inheritance tax. It’s - by far - the most hated tax in the country, doesn’t bring in much revenue compared to the spending micturation of the political classes so why bother? Why not just tax people on the profit of the whatever it is if they sell it after inheritance? Why make death one of those things that crystallises profit into a taxable event?

But there’s one more line of argument here. Wealth inequality doesn’t actually matter very much. Both Norway and Sweden have greater wealth inequality than the UK. Both Sweden and Norway have lower income inequality than the UK. Of course, consumption inequality - the thing that really counts - is lower everywhere than either of those two numbers. But it is in fact true that wealth inequality does not feed through into a greater inequality in how people live their lives - that income which can be expended.

So the reducing inequality argument doesn’t even work - so why persist with a hated, damaging, light revenue raising tax?

We assume that it’s because lots of our fellow Britons are consumed by the green eyed God of jealousy. But that’s not a rational basis for a system of taxation now, is it? Or perhaps it is but that’s a Britain that we’d prefer didn’t happen.