It was said of Robert Nozick, the libertarian philosopher and author of Anarchy, State and Power, that he could never decide whether taxation merely felt like slavery or was actually slavery itself.

His point was that by garnishing your wages through income tax the state was making you work for it whether you chose to or not. That forcible confiscation is, of course, backed up by extremely punitive powers.

Not unreasonably, there is strong opposition by the public to taxation - particularly very visible taxation like the council tax or its predecessor the rates.

Income tax and National Insurance, which are silently removed from pay before receipt are far more burdensome but less painful in immediate impact. Which is why Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's Minister of Finance, said: "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing".

The Left, traditionally, have believed that you can build a consensus of support for public services or specific institutions like the NHS and in that basis justify and raise taxation. The problem has been that for at last 40 years voters have disagreed with them.