Lower taxes are a good thing. They boost the economy, attract investment, create jobs and make the country as a whole better off. Obviously, some tax cuts achieve these goals more effectively than others. Overall, though, there is a strong correlation between lower taxes and higher growth.

Now for a couple of points that should be obvious, but that evidently need spelling out. Tax cuts will necessarily bring more immediate gains to people who pay taxes than to people who don’t pay taxes.

By the same token, they will bring more immediate gains to people who pay a lot in tax than to people who pay very little. That might strike you as a trite, almost banal, observation.

Yet every proposal to reduce the tax burden is nowadays howled down on the grounds that it will “give” money to “the rich”.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) solemnly turns out reports showing that this or that proposed cut will help the top decile more than the bottom decile. But that is, if you think about it, an argument against nearly all tax cuts (with the arguable exception of scrapping the BBC licence fee).

Boris Johnson wants lower, flatter and simpler taxes. To flourish after Brexit, Britain should make itself the most business-friendly economy in the region. The PM has made two specific commitments.