According to mainstream social philosophies, taxation is justified as a necessary mechanism to maintain order, promote economic efficiency, and ensure a fair and functional society.

That all seems reasonable, even if we’d rather be trousering our wages gross.

The essential premise is however much more simplistic than those high ideals.

Getting down to brass tacks, or rather the tax on your brass, the whole exercise is nothing more than a naked money grab to build a monster cash mountain to fund whatever activities float to the top of the pan.

Forget the single rationales of each tax  – if something is mandatory or popular, it will be raided because those factors guarantee volume.

VAT was pitched as a tax on luxury items and then applied to almost everything. And the taxman passed the time and cost of collection onto business owners.

Governments often also dress it up with reasoning that tugs at the heartstrings of your social conscience, or basic common sense, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Some of the mumbo-jumbo has become so firmly entrenched in the national psyche, that the vehicle excise duty (VED) has been known since the year dot as the ‘road tax’.

In fact, the cash collected just goes back into central government coffers. Roads are maintained by council tax, if at all.

Cynically, when they wanted to crank up the rates, they connected it with a popular cause: environmental protection.

But the cash collected has never been injected into green initiatives. It diverts directly into the central slush fund.

It’s an accrual world.

And now the latest kick in the chops from two-tier Keir: since the uptake on electric vehicles (EVs)  has escalated, VED will now be levied. Yes, EV owners will be shoehorned into the lowest emissions bracket from 2025.

Talk about having your cake and eating it – but that won’t perturb Starmtrooper Keir, a multi-millionaire with a £2m North London townhouse.

All those who offset the cost of an electrical point insulation with their VED savings will just have to like it or lump it.

We are therefore back to the philosophy of road tax and no resulting road maintenance – when it suits Rachel from Accounts. Otherwise, it’s still all about our collective responsibility to ‘save the planet’.

And the British electorate thought that after Tory shenanigans they were voting for change?

Plus ça change…