But then you spoil it all by making it clear that, regardless of whether it’s a workable idea, you’d be against it anyway. Bizarrely, yes, the TUC does believe that politicians can spend money well, although we do understand that no system is perfect. We certainly don’t believe that the private sector spends money more wisely than the public sector, as the crisis demonstrated in spades. Clearly the masters of the universe weren’t just wasting (our) money, they had absolutely no idea what they were doing with it!

And of course you can call it ‘legalised theft’ if you like, but it’s a meaningless term. All taxation involves the taking of money, but what distinguishes taxation from theft is that the former is done by democratically elected governments, so consent is required and given by majority verdict (taxation without representation is, famously, unlikely to succeed for long!)