This book has brought out my inner Miliband. A punitive mansion tax on all properties with garden squares in Notting Hill? Hell, yes! Friends, I’d go further: flight taxes on trips to Mustique; VAT at 27.5 per cent on Stella McCartney running shoes, Daylesford groceries, Yogalates classes, Vita Coco coconut water, almond milk and chia seeds. All prep schools which attract paparazzi shooting supermodels dropping off their children to be abolished, and little Fox and Memphis sent to the nearest inner-city comp not yet turned into an academy. As for iceberg basements: a direct payment of £1.5 million to the treasury for one storey, £2.5 million for two, £4.15 million for three. Call it the Tax Titannica.
Fresh Hell, the third of Rachel Johnson’s Notting Hill novels, returns to Lonsdale Gardens, W11, where double-aspect white stucco houses overlook a communal garden. Those who live there are UHNW (Ultra High Net Worth) individuals with private jets and the odd VHNW (Very High Net Worth) family making do with flying first class.
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