The politically perfect tax - on tourists

We bet they are, we bet they are:

Labour mayors across England are planning to impose a 5pc holiday tax despite businesses and Andy Burnham’s own backbenchers describing the policy as “anti-growth”.

All Labour authorities, including Lord Khan of Tooting, the Mayor of London, Burnham ally Steve Rotheram in Liverpool and Kim McGuinness in the North East, are expected to introduce the new tax on overnight stays in hotels, holiday lets and bed and breakfasts.

That inversion of Marx, first as farce, second as….for Monty Python did indeed suggest that we should just tax all foreigners living abroad.

It’s the politically perfect tax. Charging money to people who cannot vote against the tax - nor, even, vote against you for levying said tax. There might indeed be hissing but who cares what non-voters have to say about it all?

Some might call us cynics, we prefer to be described as realists.

Tim Worstall