But a remarkable turn of events is proving how wrong he was. Labour’s local election drubbing has caused an uprising against the high tax politics of Gordon Brown.

The message that this newspaper has been hammering home for years is now dictating events in Parliament.

Labour backbenchers and Cabinet ministers alike are telling the Prime Minister that hard-pressed families will take no more and that he must either cut taxes or face political oblivion.

On bin taxes, stamp duty, council tax, motoring taxes and, above all, the abolition of the 10p starting rate of income tax, Mr Brown’s long-standing belief that he knows how to spend people’s money better than they do has provoked fury.

Voters will no longer swallow the idea that belt-tightening by the Government would cripple essential services. When even a former Left-winger such as Charles Clarke lashes out at “profligate and bureaucracy-promoting public administration”, that argument has simply run out of road.

Billions of pounds could easily be returned to taxpayers without hitting front-line services. Scores of quangos could be wound up without anyone noticing; real welfare reform could slash benefits bills; vast savings could be made by ending Britain’s military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Aid to corrupt, Third World governments could be halted; public sector pensions could be modernised; the tidal wave of politically correct non-jobs could be reversed.

The cat is out of the bag: there is more than enough scope for savings to reinstate the 10p starting rate and offer more tax concessions besides. Britain just needs a leader prepared to get on and do it.

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