Joe Lolley pats Bear on the head. After stretching her legs at Holme Pierrepont Country Park, Lolley’s three-year-old black labrador has spent the past couple of hours in The Ruddington Arms, in Nottingham, listening to a conversation that has jumped around almost as much as she did during that walk.



Brexit. Non-profit organisations in Thailand. Football fans. “Crap performances”. Supporting Aston Villa. Botox. Grey Goose vodka. Boris Johnson. A confidence crisis. Twitter. The NHS. Nottingham Forest. Las Vegas.



The list goes on and on. And now, with a cold winter evening drawing in and Bear beginning to look a little bit fed up with it all, we have started to talk about income tax. Specifically, how Lolley, who made it clear on Twitter last summer that he was against now-prime minister Johnson’s tax proposals, would be prepared to pay more and take home less each month.



“I don’t understand why it’s such a complicated...