Angela Rayner must resign as Housing Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, obviously. How could she sit on the front bench through a tax-raising budget without everyone’s eyes gravitating towards her, as the minister who thinks tax rises are for everyone else, not her? But the fate of Rayner obscures the bigger scandal here, which is stamp duty itself. No one should be facing a £70,000 bill for buying a two-bedroom flat – nor, for that matter, a £30,000 one, which is the what the bill would be for someone who is genuinely buying a main home for £800,000. The latter sum is not far short of the annual average salary.

The rise in stamp duty over the past couple of decades is a symptom of Treasury greed which is killing off the housing market

The rise in stamp duty over the past couple of deca

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