I see nothing objectionable in fixing a limit to what anyone may acquire by mere favour of others, without any exercise of his faculties, and in requiring that if he desires any further accession of fortune, he shall work for it.” That, from John Stuart Mill, alongside his conviction that great economic and social advantages would result from a reduction in the number of “enormous fortunes which no one needs for any personal purpose but ostentation or improper power”, has for more than a century been the central liberal case for a substantial and effective inheritance tax.

If there’s one thing that everyone in politics seems to agree on, it’s that we need to solve the housing crisis. But there "really aren’t easy solutions here."

Last week the Royal Statistical Society announced its statistic of the year. And we at the Institute for Fiscal Studies won. We won for 58 per cent. That’s the proportion of people in poverty in Britain who live in households that contain someone in paid work.