Come on, Ming - be merciless to the rich

An opinion poll commissioned by the Lib-Dems may show that even a majority of Tory voters believe that the richest people in Britain should pay more tax, while overall 84 per cent of those polled thought the same. But we're complex folk, us Brits, well capable of "believing" two things at once.

And one thing we believe in, far more than higher taxes for the rich, is that it's precisely our post-Thatcher "greed is good" culture, with its deregulated financial industry, that has made our economy a wealth-generating powerhouse. So what if we have to put up with a few Russian oligarchs buying up our football teams - it's worth the trickle-down.

The Prime Minister believes this, the Leader of the Opposition, too, and all those folk who rushed to get their cash-back mortgages from Northern Rock most certainly do.

Who does "Ming" think he is to buck the gilded consensus? His party is nose-diving in the polls, and the knives are out for him - although being Lib-Dem knives they probably have retractable joke blades.

Nick Clegg, the Brutus to Ming's Caesar, has praised his leader's "integrity and authenticity" - burying words if ever I heard them. Doubtless, now the "For Hire" sign on that pop-eyed tambourine-banger Simon Hughes's taxi is permanently off, Clegg fancies himself as the driving force in Lib-Dem policy. But if this is the case, Clegg - and the Lib-Dems - need to take some courses in joined-up thinking.

Personally, I'm all for taxing the rich more than the poor - and I'm a member of one of the £70k+ households Ming's merrie men would like steal from. But then I'm an unreconstructed Leftie, who never signed up to the whole "greed is good" schtick in the first place. However, Clegg rejects the "Left-Right" perspectives, in favour of what he styles "the British liberal tradition of challenging arbitrary authority".

Get it straight, Nick, taxing the rich is a Left-wing policy, like it or not. If the Lib-Dems want to differentiate themselves properly from the two bald giants who are fighting over the centrist comb, they have to reach out beyond the 40 per cent of the British electorate who currently vote with any regularity, and appeal to the disaffected and the alienated.

Seen this way, Ming's suicidal call for a wealth tax is just what's needed: a wake-up call for the slumbering masses. Of course, once he's been shuffled off, I expect we'll hear no more about it, leaving Clegg and the other coming young Lib-Dem tyros to get on with the tough business of becoming dull enough to be electable.