Well I thought you meant small, not smaller. But 45% then. The current governmetn is quite redistributive – the figures are pretty clear and as I said it’s because Chris ignores spending for a reason that is no clear that he says something untrue.

Tim adds: I’d offer odds on for, say, Thursday, but then I don’t bet with real money.

A state that taxes all employees 35% of their income, and uses that to pay for a CBI of £10,000 a year for everyone, is redistributive and large. You were advocating something like this not so long ago. If that tax is made more progressive it gets more redistributive and larger.

Tim adds: 35% would be a smaller state than now……?

Imagine that we had small government, and a party coming to power on a platform of redistribution and greater social equality. Being politicians, they would naturally be tempted to use redistribution as a way of buying votes. They would try to direct money towards favoured social groups or marginal constituencies. They would try to use social justice as a pretext for subsidies, protectionism and other favours to current or potential supporters.

The next government would do the same, and the one after that. Therefore the power and size of government would slowly increase, as would the level of taxation needed to pay for it.

A strong public preference for small government would keep the rate of growth slow, but would not stop it. Instead, the public would become gradually habituated to ever-larger government, with each expansion being tolerated because it wasn’t big enough for most people to get worked-up about. But after a few decades you’d end up with bloated mega-government, the huge cost of which would then reverse the effects of the earlier redistribution.