There was one of those special BBC ‘journalist shall speak unto journalist’ bits on the Today programme this morning.

Tim Hartford from the programme, More or Less, was explaining the difference between progressive and regressive taxes to presenter Evan Davis.

He explained it thus:
“If you took £100 away from everybody, that would be regressive because it would be a larger percentage of the poor’s income.”

Fair enough. Of course, the same holds true for any amount. So he might have said:
“If you took £142.50 away from everybody, that would be regressive because it would be a larger percentage of the poor’s’ income.”

Fee the people
This figure gives a much more vivid illustration, it seems to me, what with £142.50 being the cost of the BBC licence fee, taken, under threat of prosecution, from rich and poor alike.