The pits

I came across this in my bedtime reading last night:

…tea, which had become a household staple in the Britain of the eighteenth century, but attracted import duties averaging 119 percent.

The plan:

He reduced the average duty to 25 percent.

The outcome:

In time, the huge reduction in smuggling which followed would in any case bring an increase in revenue.

Doesn't this sound rather like the Laffer Curve that I mentioned on Monday? Of course, I'm not one to welcome more money for the state - its income should be zero or pretty damned close - but if tax cutting were to result in the state getting a rising amount but a smaller share of our money one might think a Conservative party would be interested in such an outcome. But no, tax cutting's off the Tory agenda.

By the way, David Cameron may have come across the author of the words quoted above: his name is William Hague.