How do you get more tax from the rich? Cut their tax rates. Lessons from Lawson, 25 years on.

I’ve just returned from a dinner given by the TaxPayers’ Alliance for Nigel Lawson to celebrate the silver anniversary his 1988 Budget, a great event with an all-star cast. Two of George Osborne’s ministers — Sajid Javid and David Gauke — were there at the Carlton Club alongside several of the brightest stars of the Tory backbenches*. The 1988 Budget is remembered as the high water mark of Tory radicalism: Lawson’s speech was stopped twice by protests in the Commons as the implications of his reforms sunk in to his opponents. History was being made, and they were on the wrong side of it. The personal allowance rate rose by twice the rate of inflation, corporation tax was cut from 27 per cent to 25 per cent, the top rate of tax from 60p to 40p and the basic rate from 27p to 25p. Government was getting smaller and people were getting bigger.