One excuse for the higher rate of tax is to hammer bankers. But hiking the top rate of tax to achieve this would inflict immense collateral damage: at last count, just 22.9pc of those who paid the higher rate of tax worked in “financial intermediation”, which includes insurers and pension funds as well as banks and hedge funds. The remainder include business executives, entrepreneurs, investors, doctors, lawyers, senior public sector officials, entertainers and many others who work hard and drive the economy. Another excuse is that “millionaires” are those who will be hit by the 50p rate - but in fact just 6.3pc of those eligible earn more than £1m a year.